Kolkata Knight Riders’ coach Jacques Kallis rejects all the talks about Dinesh Karthik’s sacking as Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain on Tuesday after they lost five consecutive matches in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019. Kallis, however, said that there has been “no talk about the same”. He, however, hopes that Kolkata captain Dinesh Karthik will soon return to his form in the upcoming matches which will be beneficial for the franchise.
“No. We haven’t discussed it, nor it been brought up. So now there’s been no talk about that,” Kallis told. “Hopefully, he (Karthik) can get in and get us some big runs. That will certainly mean a lot to the team and as much as he wants to do it,” Kallis said for Dinesh Karthik, who has been playing at an average of 16.71 from nine innings in this season.
While Andre Russell was practising in Kolkata, captain Dinesh Karthik, Shubman Gill and Kuldeep Yadav went to the KKR academy in Mumbai for training. Because of that, the news came that the team management has given “break” for a few days prior to the next game.
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“We felt the guys needed a break. Guys are given freedom to do what they want to for the next couple of days. It’s has been a disappointing couple of games for us so we thought that guys can go and do what they want. Go home or some guys felt they wanted to have some practice in the middle which we couldn’t get here,” he said about their training in at their academy in Mumbai.
“It’s about getting the guys refreshed and coming back ready for the game and just trying to be mentally up for the game again,” Kallis replied.
However, Kolkata won nine consecutive matches under Gautam Gambhir’s captaincy in 2014 and lift their second title. While talking about that, Kallis expressed that it was done before also.
“We’ve done it before. It’s almost like there is no tomorrow for us now. Hopefully, we can repeat that again this year. Certainly, it’s possible and the guys will try hard both off the field and on the field. We will be up for the game, that’s for sure. I think everybody wants to do that. The guys will be up for it and will give 100%. There’s still a lot of belief in the change room,” added Kallis.
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Kolkata Knight Riders will play their next game against Rajasthan Royals on Thursday at Eden Gardens, Kolkata.
