Should KKR bet on a crafty Shubman Gill over Chris Lynn in the opening slot
A hero was born last Thursday at the Eden Gardens, where Kolkata Knight Riders hosted Chennai Super Kings. An under-pressure 18-year-old, Shubman Gill, exhibited every shot in the book as he stood firm alongside skipper Dinesh Karthik to guide KKR to a comprehensive six-wicket win.
With the season past the midway point, numerous flaws have surfaced for KKR, both expected and unexpected, despite the side sitting in a decent third position. While one of their biggest concerns has been checking runs in the power-play overs, where they leak 9.31
Believe it or not, KKR currently
KKR have largely stuck to their last season’s successful opening duo of Sunil Narine and Chris Lynn after their experiment of sending Robin Uthappa to open against Sunrisers Hyderabad backfired horrendously. Uthappa returned to the pavilion scoring just three runs in the third over leaving the option of Narine literally defunct. With much of the powerplay overs gone, KKR went with Nitish Rana next and by the time Narine came, the fielding restrictions were already up with the Caribbean returning to the pavilion making just nine runs in 10 balls.
The nightmarish match ended with KKR on the losing side and the management has never thought of going down that path again. A closer look at the side and one would realize that the Kolkata-based franchise has just four options who could open - Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa and Shubman Gill. Gill remains the only one left to be thrown into the pit and had Nitish Rana not been benched with an injury, Gill’s chance up the order would never have come.
Gill took the crease when KKR were reduced to 40/2 and with stone-weighed guilt at the back of his conscience for missing MS Dhoni’s catch at the 18th over of the first innings. There was only one to way to clear it - to bat his side to victory. And his customized pull shot off Shane Watson’s delivery had signalled his intent early. His batting prowess was never a doubt and the question was always about staying at the crease for long, which wasn’t really an option until that match as he generally stepped in at number 5.
Gill hit six boundaries in the match - three of which were against Watson and others against veterans like Harbhajan Singh, Dwayne Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja - all of them brilliant in their own way reflecting improvisation and preying on the gaps.
"A lot of my shots are not technique-bound if you come to see, I try and play shots that help me find gaps. In limited-overs or any format for that matter, gaps are very important. I shape the shots accordingly,” Gill had said in an interview with Cricbuzz.
Crossing the ropes at the Eden isn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination but when KKR needed to accelerate the scorecard with 57 needed off the last 36 balls, Gill didn’t flinch to take on KS Asif to the stands twice in the space of four balls. No matter how important boundaries are in T20s, rotating the strike still remains an important aspect especially against teams like Sunrisers Hyderabad, who have a bowling attack that could suffocate a batsman to death at times. And Gill displayed his forte in that department too in those crucial middle overs, where he exchanged 25 singles with Karthik to keep the required run rate in check against CSK.
Finding gaps against spinners for singles and doubles, when not going for boundaries, is a difficult art which even some of the big names in limited-overs cricket lack. Gill has surely scratched his name off that list and credits Rahul Dravid’s coaching for it.
“… Rahul sir got nets tied all around the 30-yard circle and we were told not to play shots over the nets. We had to find a way to play shots that go through below it and find gaps at that. Because the Asia Cup game that we lost was because we got stuck in the middle overs. We didn't get singles in that phase when the spinners were on with the fields open. So he set similar fields and asked us to play the singles and doubles game," he recollected.
Coming back to the main point at hand, KKR have lost 1.5 wickets in average in the first six overs, which means that Gill’s brilliance would hardly be explored if the management keeps sending him at No. 4 and neither would they want an in-form Nitish Rana to miss out on games at such a crucial stage. The only way to extract the best out of Gill would be to give him more balls – by sending him at the top order, more preferably opening over Lynn.
Before it raises all eyebrows, it must be clarified that KKR has failed to get the best out of Lynn as well. His explosive batting, for which the Australian was brought in for, has not clicked so far this season. Coming from an injury, Lynn is mostly seen letting Narine take charge while he builds his innings slowly. Compared to the successful openers in IPL like Chris Gayle, KL Rahul or Shane Watson, Lynn has failed to exploit the powerplay overs. While Gayle averages 30, Rahul 28 and Watson 21, Lynn has been scoring at a meek average of 15.78 in those overs, where he is supposed to flourish the most.
On the other hand, the tactics of opening with a smasher and a stabilizer have worked wonders this season for successful sides like CSK, KXIP and to some extent SRH as well. Hence, KKR’s going all out with two pinch-hitters strategy seem outdated now, regardless of the fact that Lynn has hardly lived up to his pinch-hitting role. Among the best strike rates, while Sunil Narine is enjoying a decent 169.29 as the sixth best of all, Lynn has a discouraging 134.02 (32nd).
Teams know to clamp Lynn with spinners that have resulted mostly in dot balls. His shoulder injury has restricted his back-lift and swing to an extent and we haven’t seen half of the last season’s Lynn, who is now dealing mostly in boundaries rather than sixes. But, Lynn can still cope with a demotion that Narine cannot. The Windies spinner can hit the ball on the rise and handle spinners well as he specializes in picking the ball over the field circle. Bring him after the first six overs, and Narine is as good as Ishant Sharma with the bat.
Lynn has trained himself to be a T20 specialist rather than a powerplay specialist. He knows his USP is his brute strength that can, in most instances, clear the ropes if and when the ball falls into his zone not depending on whether he middles it or not. The T20 veteran knows when to hang back and when to lunge forward from his crease and use the speed of the ball to his advantage. He doesn’t rely on the kind of ball to blast a biggie, but his muscles.
Speaking about his training regime to Cricinfo, Lynn, who trains with specialist hitting coaches, had said, “When I first get in the nets, I like to just smack the ball - and I can… For the power game, everything I do in the gym, again it's explosive.”
Lynn can go around doing his business in the middle overs as well after he has settled and could see the ball better. But, it is Gill, who can exploit the first six overs optimally alongside a risk-taking Narine. While on paper, Gill and Narine might not be a parallel with Gayle and Rahul, but tactically KKR could actually unlock similar potential with these two batsmen up top.
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