IPL 2018: Streak hints at Johnson return against SRH

Streak said that his team has the options available, but it remains to be seen whether KKR drops Vinay Kumar in the next match.

According to Heath Streak (behind), veteran Australian pacer Mitchell Johnson has recovered from a niggle and may be included in its second match, at home, on April 14.

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) bowling coach Heath Streak, on Thursday, indicated of bringing in changes in its playing eleven, in its upcoming IPL match against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), after it failed to defend 203 against Chennai Super Kings (CSK).

According to Streak, veteran Australian pacer Mitchell Johnson has recovered from a niggle and may be included in its 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 its practice session that was curtailed by evening showers.

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“It was a tough performance (against CSK), we got to learn from those mistakes. We have to make sure that 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 it ended in a disaster.

Streak said that his team has the options available, but it remains to be seen whether KKR drops Vinay Kumar in the next match. It has the 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. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean we will change. It might be more of changing the combination of how we use the guys, or we might go for a team change,” he said, without revealing its plans.

Streak also said that the dropping of Sam Billings on nine by Robin Uthappa proved to be costly as the Englishman set up the chase with his 23-ball 56.

“The biggest thing for us was the 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 dropped catches. We also did not bowl to our best. We just need to put our collective bowling performance in our next game,” he said.