IPL 2023: After losing comfortable to Gujarat Titans, KKR CEO and managing director Venky Mysore was asked about how he felt about losing to teams which have former Kolkata Knight Riders players in them. Mysore who was at the Knight Golf event, said that he “does not regret” losing players who are now bringing laurels to other franchises. He further added that the franchise only made the decisions based on “available information” they had. Since KKR failed to retain Shubman Gill in 2022, Gill has been in fine touch and played a key role in GT’s maiden title run last season. Follow Indian Premier League 2023 LIVE updates with InsideSport.IN
Gill scored a valuable 49 off 35 balls against KKR last night and even took a sly dig towards his former franchise in his twitter post.
Day riders 💙⚡️ pic.twitter.com/fDFqNMyow3
— Shubman Gill (@ShubmanGill) April 29, 2023
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Mysore on former players doing well for other franchises
“There is actually happiness when we see some of the players we have developed go to other franchises and do well — Shubman gill is an example,” Mysore told reporters on the sidelines of Knight Golf event in Kolkata.
With 483 runs, Gill was among the top-five run-getter last season. This time too, the youngster has been in fine form with 333 runs from eight innings (41.62 average), which has put him behind Faf Du Plessis in the leading run scorers’ list.
It’s not just Gill, former KKR players Kuldeep Yadav (Delhi Capitals), Piyush Chawla (Mumbai Indians) and Ajinkya Rahane (Chennai Super Kings) have been in fine form for their respective franchises.
Rahane, who got limited opportunities at KKR last season, has been a transformed player under the talismanic MS Dhoni and made a Team India comeback in Tests after 15 months.
“It’s always difficult to lose such players and when they do such well. Yesterday also I was telling Gill (49) that I was enjoying your batting, but I was hoping that you would not take the game away from us. score some runs, but let us… (win),” Mysore added.
Mysore blames IPL rules for not being able to retain Gill
Blaming it on the IPL rules, Mysore said: “The limitation as you know, the rules the IPL and BCCI make. In 2022 auction, we were allowed to keep only four players. There’s always a debate. There is always eight or nine whom we would like to keep, you had to select four out of those.”
“It’s tough, but that’s the system though. It happens to every team. (KKR captain) Shreyas (Iyer) was with Delhi and he’s with us, so on and forth… I can give any number of example.”
“It’s never a regret, and the decisions were made based on the set of information that was available at that point. We believe those were the right decisions we made, but it’s always tough to lose some players.”
KKR had retained Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer and Sunil Narine ahead of IPL 2022.
“Iyer, Varun took us to the final in 2021. Russell arguably the best T20 all-rounder, Narine I don’t have to say much about him. Those decisions were difficult and in the process, you just let some players go.
“Rahul Tripathi (8.5 crores to Sunrisers Hyderabad), Lockie Ferguson (Rs 10 crores GT), Prasidh Krishna (Rs 10 crore to Rajasthan Royals) you can name several of them who went for big money at auction.
“So when you see those type of numbers you feel happy for them. It’s always a little backhanded compliment to our ability to bring those type of players and grow them in our setup,” Mysore said.
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