IANS Exclusive: Former Indian Cricketer (leg-spinner) Anil Kumble on Kolkata Knight Riders' struggles ahead of their clash against Punjab Kings on Saturday while speaking to IANS, analyzed the IPL struggles of Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). For RR, he highlighted their failure to close out two winnable games worsened by Sanju Samson's absence and the surprising non-retention of Jos Buttler despite Yashasvi Jaiswal's form. He urged RR to chase smarter treating games as 19 overs. For KKR he criticized the underuse of Andre Russell who should bat higher and the struggles of openers Phil Salt and Sunil Narine which pressure the middle order. Despite a strong bowling unit with world-class spinners and pacers KKR's batting except Ajinkya Rahane has been inconsistent.
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#AnilKumble #IPL2025 #RRvsRCB #KKRvsPBKS #RajasthanRoyals #KolkataKnightRiders
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00:00Yeah, I mean, let's, we can, we can look at both separately.
00:02So, Arar, I felt that, you know, both the games that they lost, they had it in hand,
00:09which they shouldn't have, you know, they shouldn't have lost those games.
00:12I mean, it happens in the T20 format.
00:15You know, missing Sanjay Sampson is a big thing.
00:18He's a key player for the Rajasthan Royals.
00:22So, that's a big miss from your batting order.
00:26Yesha Svee batting well is certainly a, you know, good thing for them.
00:29But, again, you know, Joss Butler is someone who sort of was the key player for Rajasthan Royals for a while.
00:38He was instrumental in single-handedly doing damage to the opposition.
00:45So, we have seen that with GT.
00:47So, I was a bit surprised that Arar didn't retain him.
00:51But, however, with the team that they have, they should have won both the games.
00:55It happens. It's happened to many teams.
00:59You sort of lose from a winning position.
01:02I'm sure that's something that they'll have to assess.
01:04Otherwise, they have the team.
01:06It's not that they don't have the team to, you know, beat any side in this competition.
01:11It's just a matter of understanding that you don't leave the charge right till the end.
01:17You know, some teams can win from those situations.
01:21But, when you're not doing it, you might as well think that you only have 19 overs to chase down rather than 20.
01:29That may sort of help Rajasthan.
01:31Coming to KKR, I felt that they haven't really utilized their resources.
01:36I mean, if you look at last year's campaign, it was mostly around the starts that they used to get with Phil Salt and Sunil Narayan.
01:44That's not happening this season with their opening batters.
01:49And that certainly started putting pressure on their middle order.
01:53I felt the utilization of Andrew Russell hasn't been really great from a KKR standpoint.
02:00You know, I think Russell should bat higher.
02:03He should certainly get more opportunities.
02:05You know, just look at the one that they lost to Punjab, you know, 60 for 2.
02:13I think in the dugout, ideally, at that point, you'd say, OK, Andrew Russell, you go and just finish this game early.
02:20If you get out first ball, it doesn't matter.
02:23We still have batting in hand.
02:25But that didn't happen.
02:26By the time Russell came, he had to bat with the bowlers, not even, you know, a regular batter because everybody else went ahead of him.
02:35And even in the last game, by the time Russell came, I think the match was over.
02:3917 and a half, 18 runs and over.
02:41Yeah, it may happen once in 10 games or once in 20 games.
02:45It can't happen every time.
02:46So that's something that I think KKR need to figure out.
02:49They have the voting bowling lineup.
02:51I mean, they have two world-class spinners in their lineup.
02:55And the two fast bowlers, Indian fast bowlers, have been bowling really well.
02:59Rashid Rana and Vaibov.
03:02So they have, you know, the team.
03:06And Jinx is batting really well, you know, at the top innings.
03:09Venkta Shaya hasn't really performed.
03:11But I think KKR has it in them.
03:14It's just a matter of maybe the time that they have now, these four, five days.
03:19I know they had time after the Punjab loss to, you know, a couple of days ago.
03:24They lost a game which they should have perhaps won against GT or at least done better.
03:31So I think both these teams, if they have any chance of making it to the playoffs,
03:37they'll have to turn it around in the next game.
03:40So RR against RCB and KKR against Punjab.
03:43Otherwise, it's going to be very difficult for them to qualify.
03:45Thank you so much.
03:47Yeah.
03:48You