At the IPL auction for 2023, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) had the smallest budget (7.05 crore) and the most spots to fill (11). This meant that they had to stay quiet while other teams broke records with their first-phase signings.
When the name of Vaibhav Arora, a 25-year-old pace all-rounder from Himachal Pradesh with a base price of 20 lakhs, came up, they jumped into action. KKR started bidding for him and beat the Lucknow Super Giants to get him for 60 lakhs. In 24 T20s, he has taken 25 wickets (with a best spell of 3/16) and scored 7 runs.
The two-time champions then bid on Narayan Jagadeesan, who was the hottest player in domestic cricket at the time. They stole him from his home team, the Chennai Super Kings, for 90 lakhs. The right-handed batter hit five consecutive hundreds in this year’s Vijay Hazare Trophy, including a 277 (141), and then hit another hundred in his first Ranji Trophy match of the season.
Suyash Sharma, a 19-year-old leg-spinner, was their third player to sign with them. His base price was 20 lakhs. The young person who could be better known comes from Delhi. A few videos of him bowling show that he has quick action and a googly that fools people.
KKR needed a backup for Andre Russell, so they signed David Wiese, who was 37 years old and had a base price of Rs 1 crore. This was the most obvious choice. The former South African and current Namibian international is a good bet as a death-over bowler, where he can use his experience and different bowling styles. He can also hit the ball very hard.
The team led by Shreyas Iyer paid 20 lakhs to get 30-year-old Kulwant Khejroliya, who bowls with his left arm. He took two wickets for Royal Challengers Bangalore in three IPL matches in 2018 and one for Delhi Capitals in two matches in 2019.
Then, KKR quickly signed Mandeep Singh and Litton Das, a wicketkeeper-batter from Bangladesh, for 50 lakhs each. The first player has played for many IPL teams based on his record at home, but he has yet to be able to have a breakout season.
On the other hand, Das will be playing in the IPL for the first time. He oversaw the ODI series between Bangladesh and India when Tamim Iqbal wasn’t there. In 65 T20Is, he has scored 1388 runs, which is a strike rate of 128.87. Both players would be used as backups.
Shakib Al Hasan, a legendary all-rounder from Bangladesh who used to play for KKR, was their last signing of the season. He cost them a base price of Rs. 1.5 crore.
In total, they paid a total of 5.6 crores for nine players.
Kolkata Knight Riders Final Squad For IPL 2023 :
Shreyas Iyer (Team Captain)
Nitish Rana
Rahmanullah Gurbaz
Venkatesh Iyer
Andre Russell
Sunil Narine
Shardul Thakur
Lockie Ferguson
Umesh Yadav
Tim Southee
Harshit Rana
Varun Chakravarthy
Anukul Roy
Rinku Singh
N. Jagadeesan
Vaibhav Arora
Suyash Sharma
David Wiese
Kulwant Khejroliya
Litton Das
Mandeep Singh
Shakib Al Hasan
