IPL 2020: 'But the truth is...' - Gautam Gambhir reacts to mid-season captaincy change by KKR
Dinesh karthik
Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday dropped a huge surprise as they announced, just hours before their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 match against Mumbai Indians, that Dinesh Karthik has stepped down from captaincy with the duty to lead the side now being with Eoin Morgan.
While Karthik’s sudden decision that he wants to focus more on his batting came as a big surprise, moreover when KKR were lying at fourth spot in the points table, former KKR captain Gautam Gambhir has said that he was a bit surprised by the decision while adding the franchise management should have named Morgan as the captain of the side from the start rather than making a mid-season change.
“Cricket is not about relationships, it’s about performances and honestly, I don’t think Morgan can change a lot of things. He could’ve changed a lot of things had he captained from the start of the tournament. No one changes during the middle of the tournament. It’s nice to have a good relationship between the coach and the captain,” Gambhir said on Star Sports.
“Little surprised. He’s obviously leading KKR for the last 2 and a half years. You don’t do it in the middle of the season. KKR is not in that bad a position that someone needs to change a captain, so yeah little bit surprised,” he added.
"If KKR wanted to make this change, they should have done it at the start of the competition. If you are talking so much about a World Cup-winning captain being there in your team puts pressure on someone like Dinesh Karthik then why not just give it to Morgan straightaway, why put so much pressure on Karthik?
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Gambhir gave further insights to what goes on behind the scenes as the former KKR skipper said that you start getting “fillers” from the management about them being unhappy with your captaincy or batting.
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"My point is, it sounds very good when someone says that I want to concentrate on my batting but the truth is, you start getting fillers from the management whether they are happy or not, so it’s very unfortunate,” Gambhir further opined.
Meanwhile, Eoin Morgan started his captaincy journey for KKR with a crushing eight-wicket defeat to Mumbai Indians.