It will be a tough task for the Kolkata Knight Riders to go the distance in the IPL 2024, given skipper Shreyas Iyer isn’t in the best of form, and maybe not in the best mental space as well given the entire controversy regarding the BCCI central contracts. Plus, to add to that, he is coming back after an injury.
But on Monday, in a event for the Kolkata fans, Iyer made it clear that they’ll be aiming for the trophy. “Fingers crossed, we’ll lift the trophy.” Meanwhile, the team had finished a disappointing seventh last year, in the absence of Iyer, and with Nitish Rana at the helm. But mentor Gautam Gambhir had one message for the fans, “Keep supporting us. You have a reason to be angry when we lose.”
On the other hand, KKR coach maintained, that the side did well and the seventh place finish wasn’t truly reflective of their performance last year. “Proud of the way Nitish Rana led the team last year,” he said. “(It’s) unfortunate that we missed Shreyas, but players like Rinku, Suyash, Nitish were great. We had an outstanding season and we lost a few matches very narrowly.”
KKR Boasts of a Good Team, But Issues Visible
Despite the presence of some brilliant individual players, the team hasn’t gelled well over the last few editions. Leadership has also been an issue with KKR, since there isn’t really a senior player to guide either Iyer or Rana, in time of need. Similar is the case with foreign recruits as well. There is Mitchell Starc & Andre Russell, but their leadership credentials are hardly tested.
KKR Squad
Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Shreyas Iyer (c), Phil Salt, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain.
