Pune: The Kolkata Knight Riders secured their sixth win in the 2022 Indian Premier League to stay alive in contention for playoff qualification.
Kolkata Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer raised eyebrows when he revealed that the franchise CEO Venky Mysore is also part of the team selection process when he tried explaining the five changes they made during their IPL 2022 match against Mumbai Indians earlier. The comments created a controversy with former India allrounder Madan Lal expressing his ‘shock’ over the revelations.
On Saturday though, a smiling Iyer touched upon the issue just when his post-match chat, after an emphatic win over Sunrisers Hyderabad, was about to end. He said the comments were made in context of the CEO consoling the players who end up being benched for various reasons.
“Also I want to clarify from the last interview. When I took the CEO’s name, I wanted to say that he’s there to console the players who’ve been sitting out. It’s tough for us as well when we select the team,” Iyer explained.
“The mindset we came up in this game, it was simply outstanding. All the boys did the right things, they played fearless cricket. It was really important to win the toss,” Iyer said of the performance.
He continued, “Everything panned out really well. We were going over-by-over. The plan was to give Russell the strike as much as possible. We knew Washi had one over left, that was the over we were going to target. Sam was also giving that support. It worked out pretty well, hope it works out for us in the final game as well.”
The win saw KKR climbing up to the sixth spot in the standings and they have now just one match remaining. The two-time winners can at maximum take their overall tally to 14 points and hope few results go in their favour as well.
“We don’t have anything to lose right now. We haven’t played our A-game so far in the league, that’s what I spoke today before the match started,” Iyer said.
