If last year was bad, this year the Kolkata Knight Riders look to be worse. Will it be their worst year in the IPL? It’s too early to say the final word, but the signs are not encouraging.

The Knights plummeted to their fourth straight loss of the campaign on Saturday. The six-wicket defeat against the Rajasthan Royals have pinned them to the bottom of the IPL 2021 points table.

Defending a score of just 133/9, there was little that the Knights’ bowlers could do, except maybe expecting a suicidal collapse from the Rajasthan batsmen.

But that was not to be. Rajasthan captain Sanju Samson finally discovered restraint and responsibility in his batting to guide his team home in 18.5 overs, recording their second win of the tournament. His unbeaten 42 off 41 balls was very un-Samson like, but was exactly what his team needed.

In fact, the entire Rajasthan unit clicked on the day. Chris Morris did justice to his price tag with figures of 4/23, supported excellently by the left-arm pace trio of Jaydev Unadkat, Mustafizur Rahman and Chetan Sakariya, who together bowled 32 dot balls.

Then, during the chase, Rajasthan never lost focus despite losing star batsman Jos Buttler (5) early. They never allowed the asking rate to spiral out of control with Yashasvi Jaiswal (22 off 17 balls), Shivam Dube (22 off 18 balls) and David Miller (24 not out off 23 balls) not wasting too many balls.

Spotlight on Morgan

Last year, when the Knights appointed Eoin Morgan as the captain in place of Dinesh Karthik, the team had won four out of the first seven games. This season, they have so far won just one out of five. What will the Knights management do? Change the captain again?

Perhaps not. But they have to do something to arrest the slide. Morgan, despite his World Cup-winning badge, has looked quite timid and ordinary as a captain. His batting form (2, 7, 29, 7, 0) this year hasn’t inspired his team either.

The Knights will have to look into their resources and come up with better combinations, rather than sticking with flop formulas based on reputations. Morgan has to act fast.

Powerplay failure

Batting in a T20 match is not rocket science. Yes, it’s not easy hitting a six or a boundary, but one assumes it’s probably much harder spending hours at the crease in a Test match blocking ball after ball. T20 gives the batsman the license to be reckless.

The basic batting plan, without diving into deeper strategies, is simple and almost the same for all teams. Score as many as you can in the Powerplay overs, don’t go to sleep in the middle overs and then explode in the last five overs.

On Friday, Mumbai Indians had scored 21/1 in their first six overs and ended up with a weak total of 131/6. A day later, the Knights repeat the same mistake — they score 25/1 in the Powerplay and finish with 133/9.

Not taking any credit away from the Rajasthan bowlers — they came with a plan and executed it with aplomb — but when you haven’t lost too many wickets in the Powerplay, perhaps more risks need to taken for bigger gains. They surely can’t depend on an Andre Russell or a Pat Cummins to play blinders at the other end of the innings every day.

The sloth scoring rate enveloped the Knights in a fog of pressure. Bits and pieces of contributions from Rahul Tripathi (36), Dinesh Karthik (25) and Nitish Rana (22) did not help them get to a strong enough total.

Deeper problem

Not just the scoring rate, there seems to be other issues too with the Knights’ batting.

Shubman Gill’s scores in this IPL so far have been 15, 33, 21, 0, 11. He may be a huge talent, but then even the Titanic sank. The youngster definitely has problems in his batting and it’s for him to talk to a few wise men to sort them out. It might be technique, it might be temperament, but it has certainly gone beyond the “it’s a matter of just one innings” phase.

Planning, or the lack of it, is also an issue for the Knights. As has been evident in the last couple of years, a Sunil Narine’s batting skills, whatever little of it is available, can only be gambled upon in the Powerplay. In fact, he has mostly failed with the bat as a pinch hitter even when he has batted at the top of the order with most of the fielders inside the circle. But the Knights think he is good enough to walk into the middle in the 9th over after the fall of the second wicket.

While doing that, they shielded away Russell, the in-form batsman, for more than 15 overs of the innings. Beats logic. The result, Narine made 6 off 7 balls while his Caribbean mate Russell managed 9 off 7 balls.

Coach Brendon McCullum needs to draw up better plans. He surely remembers the 2009 IPL, when the Knights finished last with three wins and ten losses. McCullum was part of the Knights’ leadership group that year.

MoM Chris Morris (left) and Chetan Sakariya of Rajasthan Royals on Saturday PTI

Pitch report

⚫ Best strike rate (30 or more runs): 138. 46 Rahul Tripathi (KKR)

⚫ Most fours: 5 Yashasvi Jaiswal (RR)

⚫ Most sixes: 2 Rahul Tripathi (KKR)

⚫ Best partnership: 45Samson/ Shivam (RR)

⚫ Most dot balls: 18 Chris Morris (RR)

⚫ Most fours conceded: 5 Varun Chakravarthy (KKR)

⚫ Most sixes conceded: 3 Chris Morris (RR)

⚫ MoM: Chris Morris (RR) 4 wickets in 4 overs giving away 23 runs