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In a bid to find the right combination, Kolkata Knight Riders have used 19 players in nine games this season and former England captain Pietersen feels it's "far too many", adding that the former champions' dressing room is filled with negative energy.
KKR have used four different opening combinations in this edition but that didn't bear fruit as the team suffered its fifth loss on the trot earlier this week to lie seventh on the points table.
Skipper Shreyas Iyer and pacer Tim Southee have also admitted that chopping and changing isn't ideal but the former champions have no other option.
"I know that Mumbai Indians are having a shocker, but KKR are also in a dreadful way. They won three of their first four games and have totally lost it since then,” Pietersen wrote for Betway.
"They've used 19 players so far, which is far too many. For a franchise as big as them, it's just a horrible state of affairs. That is a dressing room full of the opposite energy to Gujarat: negative, negative, negative."
Pietersen feels the former champions lack the "out of the box, innovative thinking" that led them to the finals last season.
"Last year, that run to the final was defined by out-of-the-box thinking. They had their analyst, Nathan Leamon, front and centre, sending signals out to the middle, and they seemed really innovative."