Decision to hold Chakravarthy back for de Villiers backfired: McCullum

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have now lost their last two games, after an impressive win in the first match against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in their first game of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021. Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) registered a comfortable 38-run win against them in Chennai on Sunday (April 19), which will be their final match at the venue and the action for them will now shift to Mumbai.

KKR head coach Brendon McCullum says that his team will make a couple of changes in their upcoming games. "We will probably need fresh legs, expect to make a couple of changes and there will also be a change in venue with Mumbai," McCullum said at the virtual post-match press conference.

KKR spinner Varun Chakravarthy bowled an excellent first over in which he picked up the wickets of Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar, but was taken off the attack after that. McCullum feels that it was a mistake on their part.  "In hindsight, we would have bowled him then. It was wrong on our part to remove him after that over. Our main aim was to keep him for De Villiers but the plan backfired," McCullum said.

AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell stole the show with contrasting, but equally effective half-centuries to propel RCB to 204. Speaking of de Villiers, McCullum said,  "It appears he has come this year with a fresh approach, he is clearly looking very confident, he took the game away from us. This is what world-class players do, they put so much pressure on the opposition."

"It was quite a sizeable boundary on one side and quite shorter on the other but some tremendous batting from both AB and Maxwell, they took the pitch out of question and put us under pressure. We had to be perfect with our execution, but unfortunately, it wasn't," he added.

On Sunil Narine's availability, the former New Zealand captain said, "Sunil has had a bit of an injury issue, he wasn't 100 per cent fit, was touch and go for today's game, and we opted for Shakib as he has done so well for us, he also gives us that extra bit in batting."

KKR next take on Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on April 21 in Mumbai.