Kolkata Knight Riders, who finished seventh in the last IPL series, have entered the field hoping to somehow win the trophy this year.
Kolkata team in trouble:
During last year’s auction, KKR picked up key players like Shardul Thakur, Locky Ferguson, Afghanistan national Gurbaz, Shakib Al Hasan, David Wise and Narayanan Jagatheesan.
With this, the two-time champion Kolkata Knight Riders team will emerge as a strong team this year and the fans are hopeful that they will qualify for the play-off round. Also, former cricketers are saying that they have a high chance of winning the trophy.
Rana Chief:
The biggest setback for KKR is Shreyas Iyer’s injury. Kolkata’s full-time captain Shreyas Iyer was ruled out of the series due to a back injury. So, in Shreyas Iyer’s absence, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are playing with youngster Nitish Rana as their captain.
Last April 1, the league started the IPL 2023 against Punjab Kings. In this match, the team defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by 7 runs against Punjab Kings.
While the Kolkata team had not announced the replacement player for Shreyas Iyer, now the announcement has been made.
Substitute Announcement:
The Kolkata team management has officially announced that England player Jason Roy has been bought to replace Shreyas. England’s action opener played a major role in England’s World Cup victory in 2019.
So far, he has played 64 matches and has scored 1522 runs at a good strike rate of 137.62. He played for the Delhi team in the last 2017 and 2018 IPL seasons and last played for the Sunrisers Hyderabad team in the 2021 season.
He was selected to play for Gujarat last year in that line and left at the last moment as he wanted to spend time with his family. In that situation, no team bought him who participated in the 2023 IPL auction at a base price of 1.5 crores.
However, the Kolkata management has announced that they have bought Jason Roy for 2.8 crores to replace their injured captain.
