Two-time Indian Premier League champions Kolkata Knight Riders took some bold decisions while retaining players ahead of the mega IPL The 2022 auction KKR released their captain Eoin Morgan and senior professionals including Dinesh Karthik, Shakib Al Hasan and Pat Cummins to retain Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Varun Chakraborty and Venkatesh Iyer. Under Morgan’s leadership, KKR played aggressive cricket in the second half of IPL 2021 and entered the final where they lost against Chennai Super Kings. However, Morgan’s performance with the bat has always been questionable throughout the season. The southpaw scored only 133 runs and became a liability for the team in the batting department.
KKR decided to take some tough decisions to avoid the mistakes of last season and retain some valuable players, who have been labeled as T20 specialists. Sunil Narine has been a legend of the franchise and has been the MVP on several occasions. Russell, on the other hand, is one of the most explosive batsmen in world cricket and makes valuable contributions with the bat as well. Chakraborty has become the trump card for KKR with the ball in the last few seasons. Whereas, Venkatesh grabbed headlines with his batting exploits in the second half of IPL 2021.
They will now be looking for a player for the captaincy role in the mega auction.
Kolkata Knight Riders player retention order
1 Sunil Narine – INR 16 Crore
2 Andre Russell – INR 12 Crore
3 Varun Chakraborty – INR 8 Crore
4 Venkatesh Iyer – INR 6 Crore
After retaining four players, KKR’s auction purse value has now been reduced from Rs 90 crore to Rs 48 crore. Now it will be a task for them to regroup the players released during the auction with the balance they have.
Kolkata Knight Riders Retained Players: Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer
Kolkata Knight Riders released players: Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana, Eoin Morgan (c), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Shakib Al Hasan, Lockie Ferguson, Shivam Mavi, Harbhajan Singh, Tim Southee, Ben Cutting, Karun Nair, Pawan Negi, Kuldeep Yadav, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Sheldon Jackson, Sandeep Warrier, Tim Seifert, Famous Krishna, Rinku Singh, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Vaibhav Arora
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