Mitchell Johnson in action during an IPL 2018 match
Kolkata Knight Riders bowling coach Heath Streak on Thursday indicated bringing in changes in their playing eleven in their upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Sunrisers Hyderabad after they failed to defend 203 against Chennai Super Kings. According to Streak, veteran Australian pacer Mitchell Johnson has recovered from a niggle and may be included in their second match at home on April 14.
"Mitchell Johnson missed out and was rested with a slight niggle. Hopefully, he will be back for the next game that will add a bit of strength," Streak told reporters on the sidelines of their practice session that was curtailed by evening showers.
"It was a tough performance (against CSK), we got to learn from those mistakes. We have to make sure we come back strongly here," he added.
KKR's new skipper Dinesh Karthik gave Vinay Kumar the tough task to defend 17 runs against CSK in Chennai and that ended in a disaster.
Streak said his team has options available but it remains to be seen whether KKR drops Vinay Kumar in the next match. They have Under-19 World Cup winning pace duo of Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shivam Mavi warming the dug-out.
"His (Vinay Kumar's) plan was okay but if you don't execute at this level people are going to hit you. Especially at his pace, he's got to be on the money. If you're bowling at 125-130, the margin of errors are little, your accuracy and execution has to be spot on," said the former Zimbabwe captain.
"We have got some options available to us and we will have to look at it. But that doesn't necessarily mean we will change. It might be more changing the combination of how we use guys or we might go for a team change," he said without revealing their plans.
Streak also said the dropping of Sam Billings on nine by Robin Uthappa at mid-off proved to be costly as the Englishman set up the chase with his 23 ball 56 runs.
"The biggest thing for us was execution of our plans. In the middle, our spinners bowled really well but we went in for too many runs in the Powerplay which was hard to pull back," said the bowling coach.
"We had a couple of costly drop catches. We also did not bowl to our best. We just need to put our collective bowling performance in our next game," he said.
