Aberration or alarm - KKR's first IPL 2024 defeat is about how you perceive it
Often in sport not the defeat, but how you perceive it determines whether you go on to achieve great things or crash bad enough to not overcome for years. At least that's how Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) should see Chennai Super Kings (CSK)'s brilliant barbering of their three-match win streak at Chepauk on Monday, April 8.
Scoring a sub-par 137/9, courtesy of a brilliant three-wicket haul from Ravindra Jadeja, and then conceding the target in just 18 overs without taking more than two wickets wasn't 'bad bowling' and 'horrible batting' in black and white.
Instead, it was a combination of a lot of subjective grey areas, which started right before the toss. English pundit Graeme Swann in his pitch report described the Chepauk 22 yards as "rock hard", saying batters would have a "great time".
But both captains saying they wanted to bowl first told a slightly different story, which only unraveled itself as KKR's first innings went on.
Despite Phil Salt's first-ball wicket and Sunil Narine's injury, KKR ended the powerplay fairly well-placed at 56/1. In comparison, CSK were 52/1 at the same stage in the second innings. But in the next five overs, KKR crumbled to 70/4 whereas CSK cantered to 81/1 at their 10th over mark.
The difference was that KKR, like Swann, weren't expecting the ball to grip and turn. It hadn't in the past two matches here in IPL 2024 where pacers ran the show. KKR perhaps wouldn't have even expected CSK to challenge them on their strengths of bowling and playing spin instead of sticking with a good pace-dominating wicket.
And that showed in Angkrish Raghuvanshi's reverse sweep against Ravindra Jadeja on the first ball after the powerplay. The ball gripped and turned just enough to beat his swipe and hit him plumb in front. It was the first wicket of spin at Chepauk in IPL 2024 and Jadeja's only second after four games.
Jadeja went on to pick Narine on the penultimate ball of the over and in his next, also took out Venkatesh Iyer, completely washing away whatever plans KKR had.
Skipper Shreyas Iyer (34 off 32) realized the importance of building partnerships at that time but it was too late as KKR only had their biggest hitters in Ramandeep Singh, Rinku Singh, and Andre Russell left on the other end. All of them struggled against CSK's meticulously planned and brilliantly executed tactics.
"We didn't assess it (the wicket) well," Shreyas said after the match. "We had a phenomenal start but couldn't capitalize and lost the way in the end... It was a bit tacky, it wasn't easy for the batters to go from ball one. It changed tremendously after the powerplay, but our plans couldn't go according... From the start we got, we thought 160 or 170 would've been good and even when we played against RCB, it was similar conditions but when you lose your way, it's difficult to come back."
Venkatesh perhaps played the most disappointing shot of the lot. But he was put under pressure by mystery spinner Maheesh Theekshana, who allowed him just two runs in the previous over. However, this wasn't a big deal too. In the second innings, Daryl Mitchell could only secure a solitary run in the eighth over as well, this time bowled by the other mystery spinner, Varun Chakravarthy.
The difference, once again, was the luxury of knowing what the pitch was doing. Because, unlike Venkatesh, Mitchell didn't try to hit his way out of the situation. Knowing that the target was small, he knocked it around for a good 25 (19).
There were no problems in the KKR batting order per se. Even the call to send Ramandeep before Rinku made sense because KKR wanted to keep the entry points of their two finishers intact and Ramandeep played a brilliant impactful performance in a similar situation against SunRisers Hyderabad.
Nor were there any issues with KKR's bowling plans. A school of thought said that Shreyas should have been aggressive and started with Narine and Chakravarthy in the powerplay itself because KKR needed early wickets.
However, the two tweakers haven't been good in that phase in the last couple of years (Narine has a bowing average of 114 while Chakravarthy's reads 30.90). There was a substantial chance that it would have played into CSK's hands, especially because their openers enjoy spin more than pace.
The pace plan almost worked too. Although Mitchell Starc dissapointed, Vaibhav Arora outfoxed Rachin Ravindra and could've had Mitchell out soon after too but Ramandeep dropped a sitter at deep square leg. The all-rounder could then rotate the strike, allowing Ruturaj Gaikwad to get boundaries going on the other end.
Had Mitchell got out with 43 on the board, CSK's batting order would have been in a bit of a problem because Ajinkya Rahane wasn't allowed to bat before the fall of the fifth wicket as he didn't take the field for the majority of first innings.
In that scenario, Shivam Dube, Sameer Rizvi, and Ravindra Jadeja all would have been asked to build the innings, which is not their forte but Mitchell's. But then Gaikwad played a brilliant knock to make sure that KKR didn't have a second sniff.
KKR need to react better to defeat in IPL 2024 than in 2023
It's all hindsight thinking but KKR now have two choices - either press the panic button and focus on overhauling the black and white of bad batting and bowling, or look at the half-a-dozen grey areas that could have gone either way.
Last season, after their first defeat, KKR reshuffled their entire batting order and dropped Anukul Roy for Suyash Sharma. Every time they lost, irrespective of how many matches they had won before, they tended to make some selection-related change in either of the departments, which looked like a sign of disarray.
Now, even after the big defeat away at one of the toughest venues (CSK have won around 70 percent of their matches at Chepauk in recent times), KKR are placed higher than their opponent in the points table. They also play their next three next five matches at Eden Gardens, their home and once a similar fortress.
"We have to go back to the drawing board and see where we went wrong, it's great learning and we will introspect to come back hard. We know our home conditions better than anyone, we need to stick to our plans, analyze and make the best use of it," Shreyas said.
This year, they have the chance to just see this defeat as an aberration against the defending champions instead of considering it an alarm.
It has more to do with their self-confidence in whether they believe this 11 core group and formula deserved the three wins or not. More than even the result of the next game, it's how KKR perceive this loss and react to it that would reveal whether they are title contenders or the glory days are still a bit far away.