Kolkata Knight Riders finished the Indian Premier League on a sour note after receiving hammering from Mumbai Indians in a do-or-die clash on Sunday.
KKR lost the match by 9 wickets to Mumbai in their last league match at Wankhede Stadium. The slow innings from Robin Uthappa was pointed out as one of the prime reasons of Kolkata's exit from the tournament. Uthappa came to bat at number 3 and managed to score 40 runs in 47 balls at the strike rate of 85.11, which is undoubtedly regarded as very poor in the shortest format of cricket.
After the match, two renowned cricket commentators Harsha Bhogle and Sanjay Manjrekar got into the war of words regarding Uthappa's slow innings and poor patch in IPL 2019.
It was first Bhogle, who came in support of Uthappa, who was receiving a lot of flak from the KKR fans.
Bhogle took to Twitter and wrote, "I am going to stick my neck out for Robin Uthappa here. Everybody has bad days, you judge people by whether they tried hard enough. We've all failed too. Mightier players have had forgettable days on bigger stages."
To which, Manjrekar couldn't keep his mum on the topic and replied him, "KKR paid the price for bringing back Uthappa in the playing XI for no reason at all and on top of that, giving him a crucial batting position. This is about flawed tactics - the controllable- that cost them. You sticking your neck out is irrelevant."
Bhogle then defended his views and Uthappa both and said people are too harsh on the KKR batsman.
"Ah, Sanjay off his long run! My post was about failing,I know the feeling,and I thought people were being too harsh & personal. He was brought back 2 games earlier. Didn't bat when KKR made 232-2 & batted well at 3 in the key game against Kings where he made 22(14). Felt for him," Bhogle replied back.
KKR faced many ups and downs in this season of IPL with a lot of reports regarding the tussle in the dressing room atmosphere. While in the tiring season, Kolkata came out with only two good outcomes in Shubman Gill as the opening batsman and Andre Russell's power hitting spree.
