Powell hopes KKR don't 'get too desperate' in push for playoffs spot

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have lost five of their nine completed games, failed to stitch together even two wins in a row, and now need four wins from as many matches to reach 17 points, which would give them a realistic chance of qualifying for the IPL 2025 playoffs.

Ahead of KKR's home game against Rajasthan Royals (RR) on Sunday, Rovman Powell said that they have moved on from the first half of their season, and wants to build on their 14-run win over Delhi Capitals (DC) to get on a run that could see them stay alive in the tournament. After all, it has been done for: Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) won their last four must-win games in IPL 2009 and 2016, both times when they reached the final, and also won their last six must-win games in IPL 2024 to secure qualification.

"At the start of the season, it's a position that we wouldn't want to find ourselves in, but our destiny is still in our own hands, and that's a good place to be," Powell told reporters in Kolkata on Saturday. "We have four games that we need to win, and we can't look at the holistic picture right now. We have to look at it one game at a time, and our opponent for the next one.

"You can't get too desperate; you still have to trust the process. It's not just an important phase for us as a team, but it's an important phase for all the teams - even the teams that are leading, or [are] in the top-four spots at the moment. It's [about] who, at this point, plays the better cricket. Whatever happened before in the first half of the competition is history. We all know that the IPL is won by a team that finds momentum at the back-end of the competition. And if we can do that, we give ourselves the best chance of being back champions."

Powell said that the collective experience of the overseas players in the KKR line-up, having played in leagues around the world and found themselves in similar situations in the past, allows them to guide the team through this difficult phase. And despite suggesting earlier that the team has put the past behind them, Powell rued the two points they missed out on against Punjab Kings, when they failed to chase 112, and felt that game really disrupted the momentum the team was building.

"There's a lot of players from India who have just gotten a little taste of international cricket, so for us as overseas guys who have played more cricket around the world, [and] who have been in these positions a lot more, it's important for us now to guide them," Powell said. "It's important for us now to keep teaching them and showing them that it's still normal cricket.

"If we should go back and look at the Punjab game, when we got 112 to make, that game really hurt us, and it really affected our standing in the table. If we had gotten those two points, we would be sitting here with more smiles on our face. That was down to poor batting at that point, but I think we had conversations, and the guys have made incredible strides [since]."

As for the RR challenge - who, despite being eliminated, could spoil KKR's run with a win - Powell said the team looked closely at Mumbai Indians' 100-run win over RR. He said the team has picked up on some of the tactical plans to trouble RR's batters, and wants to do the same to neutralise them - especially the opening pair of Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Yashasvi Jaiswal.

Powell added that he expects to bat at No. 8, and not higher - even if that means very little batting time for him - since it allows the Indian batters to shine in their best positions.

"I think it's more tactical than ever," Powell said. "When you look at the team and how the team is built, it's built around strong Indian batters in the middle. So we have those guys to get us through the middle, and then you try to add a little bit of Caribbean power in the last five or four overs."