Picture Credit: IPL/BCCI
Midway through the 2020 season of the Indian Premier League, Kolkata Knight Riders confirmed Eoin Morgan as their captain replacing Dinesh Karthik. While they did not have the best of seasons last year and neither managed a good start to the 2021 season of the T20 tournament, ever since the UAE-leg of this season has commenced, Kolkata have looked like a different team.
Ahead of the season, the franchise had roped in England cricket team's analyst Nathan Leamon in their ranks while also having other big names in their squad like AR Srikkanth. However, a reason behind bringing in Leamon could be his bond with Morgan. The duo has been working together for quite some time now and have devised a whole new technique through which the analyst signals to the on-field decision-maker. The results are there for everyone to see.
While England have become the World Champions and are also one of the major contenders for the T20 World Cup, even KKR registered wins in both their last matches. Leamon could often be spotted putting some numbers in bold on a pad and display it in a way it is visible to the captain. While this was earlier seen only for the England team, the codes were visible again during the IPL match between Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders.
Check out the video here:
While a few reports suggest that such codes have been worked out to ensure that Morgan makes the right bowling changes and it has already been decided among the team as to what those figures mean, an earlier interview from Nitish Rana indicates that no cricketer other than Morgan knows what Leamon means when he hangs those numbers.
The first time such an act came to the fore was during the Pakistan Super League match where would give inputs to captain Shan Masood through these codes. The final decision, nevertheless, is still to be made by the captain.
Meanwhile, Kolkata registered a comfortable win against Mumbai Indians in this match chasing down 156 with 7 wickets in hand and 29 balls remaining.
