IPL6 teams: Kolkota Knight Riders

Six years back, when IPL started, one team I was looking forward to, wished to follow and be a fan was Kolkota Knight Riders. The reason is obvious,  Saurav Ganguly. I was a die hard fan of Ganguly. He represents fight back attitude anyone should have. And somewhere I used to like Shahrukh Khan, the way he created his place in Bollywood, which usually is governed by few Families, starting right from scratch as a TV actor. So, when these two forces decided to come together, I had no reason to say no to KKR. I started routing for this team. 

The team even started with a bang back then with Brendon Mccullum hitting 158 runs leaving Bangalore no place to survive. Over the time, things started changing. A few loss in close matches and every body started questioning Ganguly. By the time second season of IPL arrived, Buchanan's famous four captain theory started making rounds and Ganguly was replaced by Mccullum. That season, KKR become more famous not because of its game but because of a blog by fake IPL player who surely created lot of tension in KKR circle. 

After a dismal performance in second season, Ganguly returned as Captain of KKR for third season. This season turned out to be a good one as the team managed to reach up to  14 points but couldn't make it to next round just because of relatively poor run rate.

As Ganguly was out of KKR after this season, the team one of its fans, me.

Since then, Gambhir has been a face of the team. He has succeeded in taking the team till the end and grab the IPL cup in the fifth season. But over all I don't enjoy watching this team's game anymore. Gambhir is an aggressive player. He guides the team from the front and has pretty much succeeded in creating a confidence in the team. But somewhere down the line, the team has also collected a sense of arrogance. The team mostly appear with a arrogant face. It hardly does well in Fair game list. It is known more for other reasons than Cricket, may it then be the controversies surrounding the owner Shahrukh Khan, or the altercations involving Gambhir and Kohli or Bisla, Gambhir vs Watson, Dravid.  Yesterday, I was little surprised to see other wise cool Jacques Kallis involved in heated argument with the Umpire himself over a mankad wicket.

Coming back to team's performance. The team at present has some big names like Gambhir, Kallis, Yusuf Pathan, Eoin Morgan and Mccullum. Last year Gambhir and Kallis were in good form that resulted in winning the trophy. This year none of them including the above two have shown any good performance. Except for one or two games, their performance has been dismal. Team doesn't look like a team. There is a lot people expect from Pathan in tournaments like 20:20. But he apparently is going from worse to worst. Yesterday's his presence on the field had started appearing funny at times. His misfieldings, wrong directional return throws made me think, does he even fit in the format anymore? Eoin Morgan on the other hand has been performing fine. His exceptional catch on the boundary and presence of mind the other day was phenomenal.

On Bowling front, the team looks little loose. Though they have some strong bowlers in the team but apparently they are not being used properly. I was  hypnotized when Bret Lee bowled out Unmukt Chand on the first ball of IPL season 6. The sheer speed and accuracy of Lee's ball was mesmerizing. But later on Bret Lee simply disappeared in air. He hardly is playing any game. Other trump card Sunil Narain apparently has lost some of this shine this season. He hasn't remained that economical  as he was last year. Though he is among leading wicket takers, but he isn't any more scary for batsmen. Balaji is another bowler who tries to make impression every now and then. Some times it works, other times its the same old story.

Over all the team is good but has some where lost its shine this year. The team is not trying hard enough together and prefer to rely on solo performance of individual players.