KKR’s five-man retention shortlist finalized, Rinku Singh & S. Iyer set to get retained: The 18th edition of the world’s best T20 Cricket League, the Indian Premier League (IPL 2025) will witness the return of the Mega-Auction after a gap of three-years since IPL 2022.
All eyes will be on how reigning champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) go about their business in the auction, and which players they will buy and which players they retain and they let go.
Last season’s winners have undergone a huge-transformation, especially after their former mentor Gautam Gambhir departed to become the head-coach of Team India and he even made the duo of Ryan Ten Doeschate (fielding-coach) & Abhishek Nayar (assistant coach) follow suit with him from the Kolkata-based team.
According to some news reports, KKR’s star-player is anticipated to leave as well as he will not be retained by the team’s management ahead of the upcoming Mega-Auction.
Kolkata Knight Riders set to release Venkatesh Iyer ahead of IPL 2025
According to a Anandabazar news-report, the Kolkata-based team’s star batting-all rounder, Venkatesh Iyer is set to get released by the three-time IPL winners ahead of the Mega-Auction of IPL 2025.
Venkatesh joined Kolkata in the 2021 edition of the tournament, when he was purchased for his 20 lakh rupees base-price. He had a spectacular first-season, scoring 370 runs in ten games and his performances were the main reason behind KKR’s road to the final of IPL 2021.
The 29-year-old had a quiet IPL 2022 season, managing to score just 182 runs in 12 matches with an awful average of 16.55.
But, his poor form didn’t last for a long time as he made a good comeback in the subsequent season, where he scored 404 runs with the bat, his best IPL runs-tally till date. He even scored a century against Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians that year.
The Batting All-Rounder played an important role for Kolkata in the previous season of the competition as well, scoring back-to-back fifties in the first Qualifier and the all-important final.
KKR finalise five-player retention list, Captain Shreyas Iyer and highly-rated Rinku Singh set to get retained
Several rumours cropped up that the reigning champions were ready to send their skipper Shreyas Iyer in a trade deal to Hardik Pandya-led Mumbai Indians in exchange of Suryakumar Yadav. However, according to Anandabazar, Shreyas will continue to ply his services with the Knight Riders, alongside the likes of Sunil Marine, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh and wicketkeeper-batsman Phil Salt.
The franchise will keep their faith in Rinku intact despite the Southpaw underperforming with the bat in IPL 2024. Sunil Narine won the Most-Valuable-Player award in the previous season, while the duo of Salt and Russell played important roles in helping KKR lift their third IPL trophy.
Also Read: IPL 2025: Dwayne Bravo leaves CSK!! Set to join champions KKR as their mentor
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