Hope seniors take a little bit of pressure off youngsters, says KKR assistant coach Simon Katich

A new captain and a fresh team, but Kolkata Knight Riders ended up losing the low-scoring game against Sunrisers Hyderabad. They made two changes for that game by bringing in U19 stars Shubman Gill for Rinku Singh and Shivam Mavi for the expensive Vinay Kumar.

However, both the youngsters were left underutilized. While Gill came to bat at No. 7, Shivam Mavi was given the ball in the 15th over when SRH almost took the grip of the game during their chase of 139. KKR assistant coach Simon Katich was asked about the same. He stressed that youngsters may not get the batting position they are used to and the same applies to the bowlers.

“Had they not been backed by the team, they would have been sitting on the bench gave the amount of experience we have. As a young player, there will be times when you don’t always get to bat at the position you are used to but that’s all part of the journey of adapting as a batsman,” he said while speaking about Gill as quoted by Gulf News.

“It is the same for the bowlers. They don’t get to bowl at the time of the innings they want, because the team comes first. The captain has to decide who’s going to bowl, who he thinks is the right option at that time and we do have a number of very experienced players in the team.

Seniors should back the youngsters

He went on to add that the senior guys like Dinesh Karthik take the pressure off the youngsters by adding few runs on the board, “We are not expecting them to go out there and play an innings like an Andre Russell, it is about giving them an opportunity. Hope the senior guys take a little bit of pressure off them in terms of the way they set the innings up particularly in Shubman’s case,” he concluded.

KKR will take on Delhi Daredevils on 16th April, Monday. It will be Gautam Gambhir, the ex-skipper of KKR, a player to watch out for in the game.

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