IPL 2020: Kolkata Knight Riders new captain Eoin Morgan hails Dinesh Karthik for keeping team ahead of him

New Delhi, Oct 16: Newly-appointed Kolkata Knight Riders captain Eoin Morgan has hailed Dinesh Karthik for his selfless and courageous decision to step down as the captain of the franchise in the middle of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020.

KKR on Friday (October 16) announced that Karthik has stepped down as the captain of the franchise and passed on the mantle to the world-cup winning England skipper.

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Talking about the latest development Morgan told the official broadcasters ahead of the match against Mumbai Indians, "DK informed yesterday that he would like to step back and focus on his batting as he feels that's the best option for the team. It's incredibly selfless and it also shows a lot of courage from him to do that, putting the team first ahead of him being skipper."

KKR New Captain: Dinesh Karthik steps down as Kolkata Knight Riders captain, Eoin Morgan to lead

Morgan also expressed his happiness for continuing the leadership role and hopefully he along with Karthik would work for their team's well being.

"I'm delighted to continue the leadership role within the side, obviously captain and not vice-captain now, but hopefully continue to work alongside our players. We are only halfway through the tournament, we have showed some potential, haven't quite achieved a majority of it yet but tonight will be another good test and hopefully, we'll be up to it. I have continued to be myself, within any good side around the world, you have to have a number of leaders within the change room. I think we have them in abundance," Morgan added further.

Morgan also praised the youngsters in the side and the abundance of talented overseas players.

"We have a lot of young guys coming through that lead from the front - Gill, Rana to name a few, Nagarkoti stepped up in different stages and we have an abundance of overseas players to lead as well. Between myself and Dinesh, captain and vice-captain, we can be at the forefront of that but the driving engine is the other guys behind us. It's (conceding more runs than scoring in powerplay and death overs) been an area of massive improvement that we are striving to work towards and tonight we're going for a little bit of a different combination to try and bridge that gap between where we want to be and where we are at the moment. In order to be there, we'll have to improve in those areas drastically. Hopefully, the tactics and the strategies we go with works," Morgan added further.