Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) had just INR 5 Lakh remaining in their purse after they went on a shopping spree in the accelerated round that saw them sign five players in a span of 7-8 minutes including some high-profile picks that of Moeen Ali, Umran Malik and Ajinkya Rahane at base prices and the defending champions had two good days of auction in their attempt to get most of their original side back. KKR went hardest for Venkatesh Iyer, who probably will be their captain as the Madhya Pradesh all-rounder ended up being the third most expensive pick at the auction earning an outrageous sum of INR 23.75 crore.
Knight Riders seemed to be hell bent on having the championship-winning side back and to their credit, they were successful in their pursuit to a large extent having gotten the likes of Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Vaibhav Arora, Angkrish Raghuvanshi apart from Venkatesh Iyer. The two big misses were Shreyas Iyer and Nitish Rana, but with the purse they had, they were always behind the eight ball for those two, especially since several teams were in the market for them.
KKR balanced out Venkatesh Iyer bid with some quality value buys in the form of Anrich Nortje, Moeen, Quinton de Kock, Gurbaz, West Indies T20 captain Rovman Powell and even Spencer Johnson, as they got a like-for-like replacement - tall, left-arm - for Starc.
With an excellent core at hand of Rinku Singh, Ramandeep, Andre Russell, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine, KKR had a pretty decent auction and would be confident of having another good season in 2025, under a new captain.
Kolkata Knight Riders Squad
Retained: Rinku Singh (INR 13 crore), Varun Chakravarthy (INR 12 crore), Sunil Narine (INR 12 crore), Andre Russell (INR 12 crore), Harshit Rana (INR 4 crore), Ramandeep Singh (INR 4 crore)
Bought in Auction: Venkatesh Iyer (INR 23.75 crore), Anrich Nortje (INR 6.5 crore), Quinton de Kock (INR 3.6 crore), Spencer Johnson (INR 2.8 crore), Rahmanullah Gurbaz (INR 2 crore), Rovman Powell (INR 1.50 crore), Mayank Markande (INR 30 Lakh), Vaibhav Arora (INR 1.8 crore), Angkrish Raghuvanshi (INR 3 crore), Manish Pandey (INR 75 Lakh), Anukul Roy (INR 40 Lakh), Moeen Ali (INR 2 crore), Umran Malik (INR 75 Lakh), Ajinkya Rahane (INR 1.5 crore), Luvnith Sisodiya (INR 30 Lakh)
