Dinesh Karthik has stepped down as the Kolkata Knight Riders captain. He has handed over the captaincy to the English ODI and T20I skipper Eoin Morgan. “#IPL2020 Dinesh Karthik informs the KKR management that with a view to focus on his batting and contributing more to the team’s cause, he wishes to hand over the team’s captaincy to Eoin Morgan: #KolkataKnightRiders (KKR),” KKR tweeted on Friday afternoon, while putting out a statement on their website.
After seven games -exactly at the halfway stage of the competition, Dinesh Kartik has handed over the Knight Riders’ captaincy to England’s limited overs captain Eoin Morgan. DK’s decision might not have been surprising but is definitely managed to raise eyebrows among all the cricket pundits. His decision has surprisingly come with just a few hours before KKR’s next match, against the Mumbai Indians on Friday night. With four wins and three losses, KKR are fourth on the table. Looking weighed down by the burden of captaincy, Karthik has looked off-colour with the bat, scoring just 108 runs in seven games@15.42 so far, with just one half-century. In a game against the Delhi Capitals, Morgan smashed 44 off 18 balls, but KKR fell short, leading many fans and experts to question Karthik’s decision to send him at No 6, and not earlier.
DK has been KKR’s captain since 2018. He was led KKR to the third spot in 2018 and narrowly missed out a spot for the playoffs in IPL 2019. There are huge hopes on Eoin Morgan as he has been a really good captain for England. It is safe to call him one of the best skippers of this generation and Morgan becoming the KKR skippee might just be a blessing in disguise for the Knights. “We are fortunate to have leaders such as DK, who has always put the team first. It takes a lot of courage for someone like him to take a decision such as this. While we were surprised by his decision, we are respectful of his wishes. We are also fortunate that Morgan, the 2019 World Cup-winning captain, who has been the vice-captain, is willing to lead the side going forward. DK and Eoin have worked brilliantly together during this tournament and although Eoin takes over as captain, this is effectively a role swap and we expect that this transition will work in a seamless manner.” Said KKR CEO Venky Mysore.