2 time champions Kolkata Knight Riders will have a combination of youth and experience when they walk out to end their 7-year title drought .
KKR had a very light purse of Rs 10.5 crore going into the VIVO IPL auction 2021 . But they did some smart work when it came to strengthening their squad for the 14th edition if the IPL . KKR who failed to qualify for the playoffs last time around , bought a total of 8 players to fill the loopholes that they had in their time in the previous edition.
It added some quality players back to their squad in the likes of star allrounder Shakib-al-Hassan for Rs 3.2 crore who was the stand out pick for the Shahrukh Khan owned franchise. Shakib was an integral part of the team on both occasions when KKR lifted the trophy in 2012 and 2014 . Another smart inclusion to the KKR squad was veteran off spinner Harbhajan Singh at the base price of Rs 2 crore. Apart from Shakib and Harbhajan , Kolkata Knight Riders have signed 6 other players who will prove to be crucial like Hard hitting all rounder Ben Cutting ( 75 lakhs) , Karun Nair (50 lakhs) , Pawan Negi ( 50 lakhs), Venkatesh Iyer (20lakhs) , Sheldon Jackson ( 20 lakhs) , Vaibhav Arora ( 20 Lakhs) .
Former KKR captain G.Gambhir who led them to victory twice, shared his views on the KKR squad as he feels that current squad needed one or two explosive Indian batsmen in the middle order . “Indian batting is a huge problem for the Kolkata Knight Riders. Apart from Shubman Gill and to a certain extent Nitish Rana, I don’t see so much of quality. Dinesh Karthik bats too low in the batting lineup, he has had a horrible season last time around. That is the reason they will be very much dependent on Eoin Morgan and Andre Russell. Andre Russell needs to fire if they need to be competitive. They need to win the tournament, it’s been 6-7 years since they haven’t won the tournament. You can look very good on paper but they haven’t been that consistent,” said Gambhir while reviewing the IPL 2021 Auction on Star Sports.
Kolkata Knight Riders full squad – Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik, Shubhman Gill, Andre Russell, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana, RinkuSingh, Pat Cummins, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Prasidh Krishna, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Tim Seifert, Shakib al Hasan, Karun Nair, Harbhajan Singh, Sheldon Jackson, Pawan Negi, Venkatesh Iyer and Vaibhav Arora.
KKR PROBABLE PLAYING XI- Shubhman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana, Eoin Morgan (c) , Dinesh Karthik (wk), Andre Russell, Shakib-al-Hassan, Varun Chakravarthy, Pat Cummins, Prasidh Krishna, Kamlesh Nagarkoti .
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