BENGALURU, May 22 (IANS) Sanjay Bangar, head coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore, believes things were not clicking for veteran wicket-taker Dinesh Karthik to pull off his famous finish for the franchise in IPL 2023.
Karthik’s failure to get the team’s finishers in IPL 2023 hurt Bangalore a lot, apart from the meager returns from other mid-range batsmen as well. In IPL 2022, Karthik hit 330 runs at a strike rate of 183.33 in 16 matches and helped the team get the coveted finish in their innings, also paving his way to India’s squad for the 2022 Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia.
We tried to define its role. We made sure that he was going through the moments or the phases where his strengths could be maximized. And he had a great season (last year). So I don’t think his efforts or his preparation or the clarity of the role we gave him was any different last season. “He just hasn’t clicked this season,” Bangar said in the post-game press conference.
But he couldn’t repeat the same form from last year’s competition in IPL 2023, scoring just 140 runs from 13 matches. On Sunday, Karthik fell for a duck, his 17th instance in the history of the competition as Bangalore, despite Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 101, crashed out of the tournament after a six-wicket defeat by the Gujarat Titans at M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
“More than anyone else, if there’s one person who’s going to be more disappointed, it’s Dinesh. Because he prides himself on himself as a professional and wants to contribute to the team’s cause. So we can see him in it. Until today’s game, we hoped he’d be good. But that wasn’t it. It’s meant to be.”So we live, learn and move forward,” Bangar added.
Apart from Karthik, Mahipal Lomror, Anuj Rawat and Shahbaz Ahmed, they were unable to land the big hits consistently in the middle order, keeping the pressure high on the big three of Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell to slam the big hits. Continuously, something Bangar acknowledged.
“It could be a factor. Once you lose a couple of wickets, if the batsmen are not in form… T20 is a format that you don’t have time to get back into form. That could have an effect.”
“Maybe if our lower order were strong and we converted the fewer balls they had we would get 10-15 more runs or maybe the higher order would play fearlessly. Our hitting in the powerplay and the middle was excellent but our contributions in the last five overs in most games hurt us a bit “.
Bangar signed by conceding young Indian batsmen should have been better at whatever chances they got in IPL 2023. “Last season our top order wasn’t scoring that many runs. That means the bulk of the scoring was done through the ordering Lowest in Shahbaz and Dinesh, who had a great season last year.”
“But this season the top order has been hitting really well, and the bottom order has had limited opportunity. DK had a season that might have been below par, if he’d clicked a couple of games, that means we’d add another 15-20 in games that were tough, And that would have been the difference in winning and losing the match.”
“And you have to be patient with young players, that’s something that most teams agree on and you have to invest the time. Mahipal has had his share of roles, but he should have been a little bit more consistent. We’ll go back to the drawing board and see what kind of continuity we want to give players, and we’ll assess the season once we have that. The dust settles.”
– Jans
Unspecified number / cs
