Kolkata Knight Riders had multiple holes to fill in the auction. They went to the auction with four retained players in Venkatesh Iyer, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russell and Sunil Narine. They attempted for a few old-timers while also brought some new Knights. One of the most important vacancy Kolkata Knight Riders had, was that of a captain. They let Shubman Gill go who was considered as the next captain of the team. KKR therefore had to opt for someone who would be perfect fit for the role. Their purchase of Shreyas Iyer for 12.25 gave the hint of KKR management bidding for their next skipper. Shreyas Iyer who had the experience of captaining Delhi Capitals earlier was definitely an easy option for the captaincy role and KKR expectedly after a couple of days of the auction announced Iyer their new leader.
KKR bought back Nitish Rana, Pat Cummins, and Shivam Navi and tried to rebuild their core. However, their bid for Ajinkya Rahane raised a few eyebrows. He will be part of KKR’s leadership group for sure and help them with his experience. On Day 2 of the auction, Kolkata table was mostly silent but they later went on to buy the likes of Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, Alex Hales, Sam Billings and the team looked sorted. Whether all of these names will make it to the first eleven or not that will be interesting to watch. They also got more familiar faces like Rinku Singh while some of their purchases surprised the fans.
Retained Players Before Auction
Andre Russell 12,00,00,000
Venkatesh Iyer 8,00,00,000
Varun Chakravarthy 8,00,00,000
Sunil Narine 6,00,00,000
Players Purchased in Auction
Pat Cummins 7,25,00,000
Shreyas Iyer 12,25,00,000
Nitish Rana 8,00,00,000
Shivam Mavi 7,25,00,000
Sheldon Jackson 60,00,000
Ajinkya Rahane 1,00,00,000
Rinku Singh 55,00,000
Anukul Roy 20,00,000
Rasikh Dar 20,00,000
Baba Indrajith 20,00,000
Chamika Karunaratne 50,00,000
Abhijeet Tomar 40,00,000
Pratham Singh 20,00,000
Ashok Sharma 55,00,000
Sam Billings 2,00,00,000
Alex Hales 1,50,00,000
Tim Southee 1,50,00,000
Ramesh Kumar 20,00,000
Mohd Nabi 1,00,00,000
Umesh Yadav 2,00,00,000
Aman Khan 20,00,000
Full Squad
Pat Cummins, Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer, Sunil Narine, Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Shivam Mavi, Sheldon Jackson, Ajinkya Rahane, Rinku Singh, Anukul Roy, Rasikh Dar, B Indrajith, Abhijeet Tomar, Pratham Singh, Ashok Sharma, Sam Billings, Alex Hales, Ramesh Kumar, Mohammad Nabi, Umesh Yadav, Aman Khan
Probable XI for IPL 2022:
Venkatesh Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Sam Billings (wk), Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, Sunil Narine, Shivam Mavi, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy.
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