Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) had released as many as 12 players before the auction and had decent purse money with them to make some strong purchases. They did the same by completing a record-breaking bid for Aussie speedster Mitchell Starc before buying players who could be backups for their already existing ones.
Here we will look at the possible playing XI for KKR going into their first match.
KKR squad: Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Shreyas Iyer (c), Jason Roy, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Gus Atkinson, Sakib Hussain
Venkatesh Iyer was the standout batter for KKR in an otherwise tipsy-turvy batting campaign for the team, and his century was the major highlight of an overall inconsistent outing. He will be joined at the top of the order by Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who had a memorable World Cup campaign and can lit up the IPL as well.
With Shreyas Iyer returning and in great form of late, KKR’s batting strength has considerably increased. His presence will only bolster the middle order further, which already has Nitish Rana who had a decent 2023 season as a batter scoring 415 runs while captaining the side and Rinku Singh whose credibility as a finisher has increased leaps and bounds.
Sunil Narine and Andre Russell have been around with the KKR in what seems forever and the duo is likely to play a big part once again in the coming edition. This time, they will be reunited with their former IPL-winning skipper Gautam Gambhir and should be some sort of redemption season for the whole team. Ramandeep Singh, the Indian hard-hitting batter who previously played for the MI, may be the 3rd all-rounder in the mix.
Like SRH, the Knight Riders spent much of their purse money in acquiring the Australian pacer Mitchell Starc, and the World Cup winner is set to lead the pace attack alongside Indian uncapped pacer Harshit Rana who impressed everyone with his pace last time around. Varun Chakravarthy will be the spinner along with the legendary Sunil Narine for KKR in the coming season.
Suyash Sharma donned the role of an impact player to perfection having picked 10 wickets in 11 games last season and the youngster may be asked to play a similar way in the upcoming season as well.
KKR’s Probable playing XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Harshir Rana, Varun Chakravarthy
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