Live Score
Cricket Teams
Cricket Players‘I can’t please you’: KKR skipper Dinesh Karthik on how he settled dispute with Andre Russell
KKR’s overdependence on the all-round abilities of West Indies Andre Russell was one of the major reasons for the team’s lacklustre showing along with a depleted pace attack.
When Kolkata Knight Riders decided to move and not retain Gautam Gambhir in their squad in 2018, all eyes were on who they would give the top job of captaincy too. The eventual choice of Dinesh Karthik surprised many, but the wicket-keeper batsman stamped his class on the team by guiding them to the play-offs in his first season as captain. A lot was expected from the team in 2019 but the season ended in a heartbreak for KKR as they missed out on a play-off spot on net run-rate in what was one of the most closely fought group phases ever.
KKR’s overdependence on the all-round abilities of West Indies Andre Russell was one of the major reasons for the team’s lacklustre showing along with a depleted pace attack.
Following the unsuccessful season Russell spoke about not being happy with certain decisions of the team. He spoke openly about bad decisions being the reason behind the team’s defeat and that gave birth to talks about a possible rift with Karthik.
Speaking about the issue and how he later spoke to Russell about his problems, Karthik said that he had a man-to-man chat with the West Indian.
“To be fair, he’s one of those guys who wears his heart on his sleeve. I am sure he meant whatever he said. But again, West Indies players are in your face kind of people. But whatever they say, they say it honestly and it’s up to how you take it. If you want to take it offensively, then the mistake is on your part. If you want to take it constructively which is how I looked at it. We had a conversation over it man to man.
“He wasn’t not happy with me, he wasn’t happy that the team wasn’t winning, that is the bottomline. Whatever he said, I completely respected it.
Also read: ‘He may not get a chance to play Tests in near future’: Aakash Chopra on Indian opener
“He was a little apologetic as well. At the end of the day, I have a great relationship with him. If I didn’t have a great relationship with him, it could have spiralled into something nasty,” Karthik said on The RK Show on YouTube, hosted by cricket commentator and presentor Radhakrishnan Sreenivasan.
Karthik also mentioned that he told Russell that as the leader of the team he will have his own way of thinking which cannot be the same as that of anyone else. He further said that he was ready to have hard conversations if the need comes.
“Because I have an honest relationship with him where I can go straight up to him and be like ‘Russ you know what, I don’t think what you have said is right, because the way it has come out, it’s not great.’. He also said ‘you know skip, this is how I felt about it not how it’s come out’. There itself half the battle is over.
“But then he had an issue. He said ‘we can do this better. I don’t think you are doing this way’. And then I had to explain ‘being a leader, I can’t completely please you but we can change things around but not exactly like you want’.
“Having different opinions and dealing with it is one of the most important things. I think you need to be able to stand up and have a conversation. Sometimes a hard conversation as well,” Karthik added.
