Their batting has not taken off at all, while their bowling has been erratic at best. On Sunday evening, the Kolkata Knight Riders’ fielding too fell apart to complete coach John Buchanan’s set of problems. And now, having tried everything — from dabbling in a multi-captaincy theory to the use of sign language —Buchanan has asked the Indian Premier League organisers to make space for more foreigners in the playing XI.

“It is a question that we have posed to the IPL a number of times, about the involvement of more (foreign) players on the field. I have personally mentioned that a number of times. Hopefully the IPL will look at that more seriously going forward into next season and beyond,” Buchanan said after the team’s sixth loss in eight games. “At the moment we have adopted a batting strategy, so that’s where our international effort is. That means guys who are international bowlers, be it Langeveldt, Mortaza, Mendis... whoever, their opportunities are limited,” he said.

Incidentally, other teams have had to leave players such as Glenn McGrath, David Warner, Paul Collingwood (all Delhi), Makhaya Ntini (Chennai) and Mark Boucher (Bangalore) in an attempt to strike the right balance — something that KKR have failed to do.

Even a look at the numbers would suggest that it’s the performance of the local players that has swung the balance in many cases — players such as Shadab Jakati, Abhishek Raut, Kamran Khan, Sudip Tyagi, Vikramjeet Mallick, Sunny Sohal, T Suman, Karan Goel and Sreevats Goswami.

... contd.