On Saturday, Kolkata Knight Riders received another major blow early into their IPL 2018 campaign through a foot injury to their Under-19 pace bowling sensation Kamlesh Nagarkoti. The 18-year-old will now be replaced by Karnataka speedster Prasidh Krishna. Nagarkoti picked up the injury before the start of the tournament and the wary franchise had summoned Prasidh as a backup option and even played him in the two practice matches where he fared well.
Nagarkoti's replacement, Prasidh, made his first-class debut for Karnataka in 2015, picking up a five-fer against the touring Bangladesh A team in Mysore. While that remains his only first-class fixture for the state side, the right-arm pacer has gone on to feature in 19 List A games, picking up 33 wickets. He was recently a part of Karnataka's campaign in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Prasidh, unlike Nagarkoti, isn't an outright fast bowler but his tall frame and ability to hit the deck hard makes him a promising bowler.
KKR, who invested heavily in bagging the services of the 19-year-old in this year's mega auction by shelling out INR 3.2 crore, become even thinner with their bowling resources. The franchise are already without Australian paceman Mitchell Starc, who was ruled out with a tibial bone stress, and their other lead pacer, Mitchell Johnson, had to sit out of their last game against Chennai Super Kings, with a slight niggle. All these injury concerns against the backdrop of their harrowing loss to CSK after R Vinay Kumar's fateful 17-run final over, has now snowballed into a major headache for the two-time champions.