Rajasthan Royals signed the veteran South African spinner Keshav Maharaj as an injury replacement for Prasidh Krishna for the Indian Premier League 2024 on Thursday, March 28. Kolkata Knight Riders also announced a surprise replacement for injured Afghanistan spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman.
KKR replaced Mujeeb with the 16-year-old offspinner, Allah Ghazanfar, from Afghanistan for a base price of INR 20 lakh. Ghazanfar made his international debut during Afghanistan's recent ODIs against Ireland and will become the youngest player for LSG if earns an IPL cap this season.
The star Australian spinner Adam Zampa withdrew his name due to personal reasons and left Rajasthan's campaign ahead of the 2024 edition. With Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvenra Chahal in the team, the Royals are likely to utilise Maharaj as a backup spin option this season.
"Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) named Allah Ghazanfar as a replacement for the injured Mujeeb Ur Rahman while Rajasthan Royals (RR) added Keshav Maharaj to the squad in place of Prasidh Krishna for the TATA Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024," IPL statement said. "Allah Ghazanfar has represented Afghanistan in 2 ODIs. The youngster has played 3 T20s and 6 List A matches and has 5 and 4 wickets respectively against his name. He joins KKR for his base price of INR 20 Lac."
Rajasthan Royals kicked off the IPL 2024 season with a dominant 20-run win against Lucknow Super Giants while Shreyas Iyer-led Kolkata Knight Riders recorded a narrow four-run win against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Rajasthan Royals updated squad: Sanju Samson (c & wk), Jos Buttler (wk), Shimron Hetmyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ravichandran Ashwin, Sandeep Sharma, Yuzvendra Chahal, Riyan Parag, Navdeep Saini, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Trent Boult, Donovan Ferreira, Kuldeep Sen, Kunal Rathore, Avesh Khan, Rovman Powell, Shubham Dubey, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Abid Mushtaq, Nandre Burger, Keshav Maharaj.
Kolkata Knight Riders updated squad: Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Anukul Roy, Rinku Singh, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Vaibhav Arora, KS Bharat (wk), Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Gus Atkinson, Sakib Hussain, Allah Ghazanfar.
