Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) still haven’t decided who’ll be their captain for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season. It seems like the reigning champions have two candidates: Ajinkya Rahane and Venkatesh Iyer. The former recently indicated that there have been no conversations between him and the franchise. The latter hasn’t said anything about communication but is ready to be named the new KKR captain.
Leader more valuable than captaincy, KKR’s Venkatesh Iyer
“Definitely. Definitely, I’m ready. Again, I’ve always said this: captaincy is just a tag. I believe in leadership. That is a bigger role to play, being a leader,” Venkatesh told ESPNcricinfo.
The southpaw doesn’t have any captaincy experience. He doesn’t even lead Madhya Pradesh in domestic cricket as Rajat Patidar is their Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy skipper. But Venkatesh values leadership more than captaincy.
“You don’t necessarily need the tag of a captain to be a leader in your dressing room. You need to set examples. You need to be a good role model, both on and off the field, which I am doing right now in MP. I’m not the captain of the MP team, but my opinions are respected, and I really love to be in an atmosphere where every individual—again, new or experienced, 20 lakhs, 20 crores, or whatever—you just need to have the freedom to voice your opinion. Or you just need to have the freedom to give opinions and give suggestions and them to be taken in the right spirit,” the Rs 23.75 crore pick added.
Venkatesh wants to have a voice in the dressing room, someone who the think tank listens to. Now, if that means Rahane or someone else is the KKR captain for IPL 2025 season, so be it.
“I’ve always wanted to be that person. And if captaincy comes my way, I would definitely want to do it. There’s no ambiguity surrounded to this. I’ll definitely do it if it comes my way. There is no reason not to do it,” Venkatesh concluded.
KKR squad for IPL 2025
Batters: Rinku Singh, Quinton de Kock, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Luvnith Sisodia, Ajinkya Rahane
All-Rounders: Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Moeen Ali, Ramandeep Singh, Andre Russell
Bowlers: Anrich Nortje, Vaibhav Arora, Mayank Markande, Spencer Johnson, Umran Malik, Harshit Rana, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy
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