Kolkata Knight Riders' practice session at the Eden Gardens yesterday, on the eve of their match against Rajasthan Royals, may have seemed like an optional training session, with head coach Jacques Kallis monitoring the likes of Andre Russell and a few of the other foreign players in Kolkata, while the rest of the bunch were absent.

However, it wasn't so as the rest of the group were simultaneously training in Thane under KKR's academy coach Abhishek Nayar. Nayar conducted a one-and-a-half day training session at Thane's Dadoji Konddev Stadium with a bunch of KKR's Indian players that included skipper Dinesh Karthik, Kuldeep Yadav, Robin Uthappa, Shubhman Gill and Nitish Rana, among others. It is learnt that Karthik & Co, around 10 of them, flew to Mumbai after their loss to Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 21. The idea was to try and restore the confidence in some of the players who are not performing.