IPL 2022: KKR Season Review

Kolkata Knight Riders came up with a new captain Shreyas Iyer in IPL 2022. After a good start in the season, winning three out of their initial four games, KKR went completely inconsistent.

Starting their campaign against the defending champions Chennai Super Kings in tournament opener, Kolkata claimed a handsome victory of six wickets. After that they had to face a defeat against RCB in second match, which was followed by two consecutive wins against Punjab Kings and Mumbai Indians.

Just after that, things went all south for KKR as they had lost five matches in a row, which led them to the edge of elimination. Later in five remaining matches, Shreyas Iyer & Co. managed to get only two wins including a defeat in a close encounter against Lucknow Super Giants by two runs.

Lack in decision making, inconsistency and lot more to work on for KKR

Looking at the reasons behind Kolkata’s miseries in IPL 2022 the continuous failures of openers and unnecessary changes in by the team management emerge as the biggest ones. Apart from this, there were not any established and dependable batter for team in middle-order except the skipper Shreyas Iyer, which resulted in the batting collapse of KKR on a few occasions.

KKR retained Venkatesh Iyer before the tournament but then lost trust in him as they benched him. In-form cricketer and domestic sensation Rinku Singh got a chance in playing XI too late. So, it can be said that decision making and inconsistent or imbalanced playing XIs were the prime reasons of team’s performance in this season.
Analyzing all the failures which resulted in eight defeats, it can be concluded that Rinku Singh was one of the very few positives for the team. He also played a remarkable knock of 40 runs in the nail biter against GT. Unfortunately, he couldn’t take his team across the line and they fell two runs short from win. All in all, there is plenty KKR need to work upon before they come back next year.