'Talent only gets you so far': Disappointed Eoin Morgan wants his players to covert talent into performance

Following a fifth defeat in IPL 2021, Kolkata Knight Riders captain Eoin Morgan expressed disappointment over his team’s seven-wicket defeat to Delhi Capitals in Match 24 in Ahmedabad on Thursday. Put to bat, KKR batsmen struggled, getting restricted to 82/5 before a rearguard effort by Andre Russell took the total to 154/6. In reply, DC had no such issues with opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw putting on 132 runs and powering their chase.

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"Very disappointed. We were quite slow off the blocks, and lost wickets in the middle. Andre got us to 150, but we were slow with the ball again. Throughout the tournament so far we've struggled to combine batting and bowling in one match," losing captain Morgan said during the presentation ceremony.

KKR bowlers were ineffective barring one. Pat Cummins returned 3/24 from his four overs accounting for all three DC wickets to fall – Dhawan for 46, Shaw for 82 and Rishabh Pant for 16. Surprisingly, Cummins came on as the third bowling change for KKR, which in the hindsight might have cost KKR the game. With the result, KKR are placed fifth on the points table with just two wins.

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"He [Cummins] has been bowled earlier with the new ball [last season]. Mavi bowled four on the trot last game and bowled well," Morgan said about Cummins’ utilization.

In the end, Morgan accepted the fact that his bunch of players need to convert their talent into performance. "Moving forward, we need our big-name players to get into the action. You need to be honest and realistic. Otherwise, you are doing a disservice to the guys in the change room. Hopefully, we can turn things around. We have a huge amount of talent, but talent only gets you so far. You need to turn it into performance, which we haven't done," Morgan added.