4 things KKR's campaign taught us this season

The 11th edition of the Indian Premier League was quite a special one for various reasons. One of them was the fact that up until the last game of the league stage, the 4th team to make the Playoffs was not clear.

Even on the last day, three teams had a chance to stay alive in the competition. However, the team which had qualified a day earlier, the Kolkata Knight Riders, had a roller-coaster ride in the tournament.

KKR did not appear as a really strong side on paper and only a few backed them to play as well as they eventually did. Battling their own set of limitations, KKR put on a very brave show at the Indian Premier League 2018, and given the concerns they had before the start of the tournament, KKR must be very proud of the way they performed this season.

Although they could not go all the way to lift the cup, KKR have a lot of positives to take from this tournament.

Here are 4 things KKR’s campaign taught us.

#4 Accept the situation, find a way to deal with it

KKR had a decent auction with a few good buys but had the smallest squad in this year’s IPL. This implied that the Knights had limited resources which they needed to mix and match and try and find the right balance at the same time not waste too many matches.

The fact that some of the key players on whom the franchise had shown faith in at the auctions got injured did not help their case either.

Ace pacer Mitchell Starc and U-19 star Kamlesh Nagarkoti were ruled out because of injuries and Chris Lynn looked a pale shadow of himself in the initial phase of the tournament. But KKR came back rather strongly, finding the right balance somehow and then going ahead to stitch a few wins together in order to qualify.

The point worth noting is that KKR never lost hope, did not live in denial and found a way to deal with the situations instead and that proved enough to make a place in the final four.