Dinesh Karthik and Andre Russell play for KKR in the Indian Premier League. (Source: IPL)Former Australia and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) spinner Brad Hogg said that if the Indian Premier League side has to perform well in UAE then they need to resolve the differences between captain Dinesh Karthik and Andre Russell.
Hogg’s observation comes in question after things got a bit uneasy at the Kolkata Knight Riders camp when West Indies star Andre Russell went on record to say that Russell that a few “bad decisions” by their team during their 2019 IPL campaign had led to their loss and blamed an unhealthy team atmosphere for the poor results.
“We have a good team but if you make bad decisions then you will always lose games and that’s what we’ve been doing. If we had enough time, I could pinpoint a few games where if we just looked to bowl tighter in areas or bring in right bowlers at the right time, we could have won,” Russell had said after KKR failed to defend 176 against a “weak” Rajasthan Royals.
However, Dinesh Karthik had spoken on the matter on the RK Show a couple of months ago and said that he looked at the incident constructively, and had a man to man conversation with Russell after the episode, and the issue was resolved between themselves.
However, for Hogg, it seems like the episode is still not done and he opined that the tensions between the two players is one major flaw in the KKR team.
“What is the one flaw in this team? There is only one – the relationship between Andre Russell and Dinesh Karthik. We can’t have Andre Russell come out in the media after the game and say we didn’t make the right decisions. That’s got to be done behind closed doors,” Hogg said in the latest episode of ‘Hogg’s Vlog’ on his official Youtube channel.
“Brendon McCullum has to make sure he rectifies that relationship, gets on top of it early, because, if there is a little bit of disharmony in this line-up, it can have a ripple effect in a bio-secure environment, and things can get out of hand very quickly,” Hogg added.