All the teams will have to readjust and renew their strategies for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) need to stress more as they are not the same team besides a few major retentions.
They no longer have their inspirational captain Shreyas Iyer. They have also let go of a prized asset like Nitish Rana who played for them for seven straight seasons. Despite the two major departures, KKR still have plenty of riches in each department as they gear up for a successful title defence.
Here are three decisions they need to make with the starting XI.
KKR weren’t able to get the swashbuckling opener Phil Salt in the auction. But they managed to secure the services of Afghanistan opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz, South African keeper-batter Quinton de Kock, and broke the bank for Venkatesh Iyer to retain him for a dizzying price of INR 23.75 crore.
They also have Sunil Narine, who lit up the IPL 2024 in the opening role with 488 runs from 14 innings at a superb strike rate of 180. Gurbaz also opens the innings for Afghanistan and most of the franchises he plays around the world. All three batters have played more than 100 T20 matches each as an opener and scored a minimum of 2,500 runs in that position.
De Kock has the lowest strike rate of 138 among the trio but his consistency is unmatched having scored 9,583 at the top. Narine is a useful batter to have in any position. Thus, it’s better to have him as a floater and use De Kock and Gurbaz as the opening pair.
KKR have a wide range of skill sets be it Ajinkya Rahane’s steady-scoring approach or the all-guns blazing method applied by Rinku Singh. They used a flexible batting line-up strategy last season to great effect. Phil Salt and Narine were the only fixed slots for opening the innings. The rest of them walked in according to the situation.
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Currently, they have Rahane in place of Shreyas who can toggle between No.3, 4, and 5. Angkrish Raghuvanshi and Venkatesh are also capable of playing in those spots. Rinku and Russell can also produce dividends if they are sent as per the 1 vs 1 strategy like last year.
KKR are stacked with pace-bowling riches with Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Andre Russell, Mayank Markande, and Umran Malik. While Rana and Arora will most likely be the new-ball bowlers, it would be wise to include Spencer Johnson for the middle and death overs quota.
The Australian left-armer is probably the best option to have when you don’t have Mitchell Starc. Johnson can swing the old ball and utilise his towering height to fire toe crushers at will. In the recent Big Bash League 2024-25, Johnson maintained an economy under nine while bowling eight overs at the death in seven matches for Brisbane Heat.
He had a decent start to his IPL career last season having played five matches for Gujarat Titans and claiming four wickets. The management can gauge his performance based on the Champions Trophy, which is his first major international tournament in sub-continental conditions.
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