Dinesh Karthik Giving Up On Captaincy Disappoints Aakash Chopra
Nov 22, 2020 at 4:39 PM
Dinesh Karthik giving up Kolkata Knight Riders’ (KKR) captaincy midway through the tournament was one of the most controversial decisions of the 13th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020.
There were rumours that Dinesh Karthik could be asked to hand over the captaincy to England batsman 2019 World Cup winner Eoin Morgan early in the tournament and those rumours finally came true on October 16 on the eve of the match against Mumbai Indians (MI).
Dinesh Karthik Questionably Gave Up Captaincy Despite Team Faring Well In IPL 2020: Aakash Chopra
The arguable decision has been talked about for more than a month, and with KKR failing to qualify for the playoffs, the scrutiny has increased even more. In the seven games in which Morgan captained, KKR could only manage victory in three. It led to two-time champions in 2012 and 2014 missing out on a playoff place despite being one of the favourites to get through and win IPL.
Former Indian batsman and presently commentator Aakash Chopra talked about the decision while questioning if Dinesh Karthik really did voluntarily give up the captaincy or the management forced him to do so.
“Firstly, I am disappointed because when you win four of your first seven matches and if you replicate that performance, then you are through, eight victories were more than enough for you to qualify. Delhi actually came second with 16 points,” Aakash Chopra said in a video shared on his Facebook page.
“So if things go bad from there, you change the captaincy halfway, it has been said that Dinesh Karthik gave up the KKR captaincy but would he have done that?”
Despite KKR winning four matches out of seven, Dinesh Karthik decided to let go of the captaincy role. Eoin Morgan fared no better as under him Kolkata won only three and lost four as they failed to qualify for play-offs.
Dinesh Karthik Should Not Have Handed Captaincy To Overseas Player Eoin Morgan: Aakash Chopra
Dinesh Karthik had led KKR in 37 matches and team has won most of them, but suddenly gave up the captaincy in the middle of IPL 2020 despite team in contention for birth in play-offs. Under Eoin Morgan, KKR lost to Bangalore after managing only 84/8 in stipulated 20 overs and to Mumbai by eight wickets.
KKR won against Delhi and Rajasthan and also scraped through against Hyderabad in Super Over. But the two losses and the third loss against Chennai decided in the last ball hurt their chances of qualifying.
“Did the team’s performances improve after the captaincy was handed over to Eoin Morgan? Is Eoin Morgan the right captain will also be a big question because he is an overseas player and is he right in terms of his tactics and is he a 100% certainty in the team although his performance was good at the end.”
KKR won only seven matches out of their sixteen games as they failed to get into the top-four due to a negative net run-rate whereas Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore qualified.