Venkatesh Iyer stunned many after being roped in for a massive price of Rs 23.75 crore by Kolkata Knight Riders at the IPL 2025 mega auction on Sunday, November 24. Iyer entered the auction at a base price of Rs 2 crore and saw a massive bidding war for him by three teams.
The star Madhya Pradesh all-rounder attracted major interest from Lucknow Super Giants, Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Kolkata Knight Riders. The IPL 2024 champions KKR managed to secure the deal after they made the winning bid of Rs 23.75 crore.
KKR, who didn't have the option of Right to Match heading into this auction (as they had already retained six players), were the first ones to raise the paddle for the MP all-rounder. LSG joined the bid quickly but moved out when the bid reached Rs 7.75 crore. RCB entered next and had a bidding war with KKR for Iyer.
The price soared up and kept rising with neither RCB nor KKR giving up. It quickly crossed Pat Cummins' price of Rs 20.50 crore and threatened to go past Starc's 2024 salary of Rs 24.75 crore before RCB quit when the bid reached Rs 23.75 crore.
Iyer was KKR's first buy after they could not take players like Shreyas Iyer and Mohammed Shami despite going behind them. KKR later made several more bids and roped in two star foreign wicketkeeper batters Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Quinton de Kock for Rs 2 crore and Rs 3.60 crore, respectively. KKR also signed South African speedster Anrich Nortje for a sum of Rs 6.50 crore.
Kolkata came into the auction after retaining all of their six players. KKR retained Rinku Singh (Rs 13 cr), Varun Chakravarthy (Rs 12 cr), Sunil Narine (Rs 12 cr), Andre Russell (Rs 12 cr), Harshit Rana (Rs 4 cr) and Ramandeep Singh (Rs 4 cr).
