KKR vs SRH: "Phil Salt's absence won't drop Kolkata's value.."- Virender Sehwag's colossal prediction

Former IPL finalist Virender Sehwag feels that the Kolkata Knight Riders won't be negatively impacted by the absence of their English opener Phil Salt. 

Due to the English team's international assignment before the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 next month, Phil Salt left to join the England camp. The Three Lions, who will be led by Jos Buttler, will be welcoming Pakistan for a 4-match T20I series which will be starting from tomorrow onwards in Headingley. 

Phil Salt isn't the only Englishman who left his IPL franchise to return for National duty. The likes of Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Reece Topley, and Moeen Ali have also said goodbyes to their respective franchises. The 4 matches against Pakistan will serve as a very good preparatory series for the England team who will enter the T20 World Cup as reigning champions from the 2022 edition. 

What did Virender Sehwag say about Phil Salt's absence?   

While speaking to Cricbuzz yesterday after KKR's last league game against Rajasthan was washed out, Virender Sehwag had his say on Phil Salt. The former Delhi Daredevils captain claimed that Salt's absence from the KKR team will not mean that the franchise's value will decrease. 

With that being said, Sehwag claimed that it's time for other players in the team to rise up for the occasion and perform well for the team. If we talk about the impact Phil Salt had for KKR with the bat, then he scored 435 runs from 12 matches at a strike rate of 182, scoring 4 half-centuries with a best of 89*. 

Sehwag feels that Phil Salt will not be necessarily missed but the strike rate at which he batted will be something that KKR will miss a lot. 

"It's not like one player's absence will drop the value of your team. It's just that the other player needs to perform well. What will actually matter is that one of your in-form players will be absent. How Phil Salt has performed, the runs he has scored, the strike rate he batted with, these will be missed by KKR." - Virender Sehwag said via Cricbuzz. 

Sehwag asks other batters to stand up and take the onus

Virender Sehwag then affirmed that some other player had the opportunity to rise and play better than Phil Salt in the first Qualifier match. Viru also stated that the player will just have to perform in 1-2 games and that they were bought by the team management for these types of moments only. Therefore, KKR should not have many problems. 

"However, it can also happen that someone can step up and perform better than Salt in that match. All he has to do is play one match right? So I'd rather look at it positively. You have bought the rest of the players for this sort of moment." - Sehwag concluded. 

Meanwhile, the Kolkata Knight Riders led by Shreyas Iyer will be in action tomorrow for their Qualifier 1 match against the Sunrisers Hyderabad in Ahmedabad. If KKR wins they will head straight to the final and if they lose, they will play either Bengaluru or Rajasthan in the second Qualifier match.