Indian Premier League (IPL) defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are in a precarious place forward of the upcoming season as they’d be with out the providers of earlier season’s mentor Gautam Gambhir, assistant coach and academy head Abhishek Nayar and assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate. The trio have joined the Indian cricket group as head coach and assistant coaches respectively, and definitely depart a void within the KKR dugout.Whereas Dwayne Bravo has joined the facet as mentor, different positions should be stuffed.
Along with the backroom workers, early indications are that the captaincy position just isn’t simple both. Shreyas Iyer joined KKR when he was purchased for Rs 12.25 crore on the 2022 public sale and it is understood that the franchise is prepared to retain the Mumbai batter however not as their prime retention.
Forward of October 31 deadline, Andre Russell is the entrance runner to be retained with a hefty price ticket. The all-rounder was earlier retained for Rs 12 crore by KKR and may be very prone to get a considerable increase.
If issues do not go per Iyer’s liking, will he discover completely different choices? In case he seems to be that means, the right-hander is predicted to set the public sale on fireplace as a result of many groups – Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Punjab Kings, Delhi Capitals – are within the want of a captain. And an Indian captain is at all times wanted.
Punjab will not thoughts loosening their purse strings for the right-hander contemplating he had a profitable partnership with Ricky Ponting, now PBKS head coach, at DC and the 2 had been collectively after they reached the ultimate in 2020.
Equally, do not be shocked if DC discover the Iyer choice, too, as a result of he was a confirmed chief for them and Rishabh Pant has requested to not be thought of as skipper.
Even final 12 months, when Iyer was coming back from harm lay-off, there was a bit within the KKR camp which wished to proceed with Nitish Rana, who was standby captain in Iyer’s absence, as chief for 2024 season.
The franchise, nevertheless, “introduced” Iyer as captain earlier than the event acquired underway. The assertion did increase a couple of eyebrows as Iyer was the unique captain and Rana was solely doing the job in his absence, and plenty of felt the announcement was completely pointless.
Shah Rukh Khan co-owned KKR are one of many franchises who advocated for a smaller public sale, and pushed for extra Proper to Match (RTM). It is a technique they’re doubtless to make use of on the upcoming public sale.
There are extra tempting retention choices in Rinku Singh, Harshit Rana (uncapped), Mitchell Starc and Varun Chakravarthy however it will likely be fascinating to see how a lot the defending champs are prepared to spend.
They’ve an issue of a lot on that entrance nevertheless it’s their captaincy piece which might be keenly adopted by different franchises too.
