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The World Cup 2023 Tournament is over with Australia crushing the dreams of millions of Indian cricket fans. After the ICC World Cup Tournament, BCCI is bringing the most awaited IPL 2024 season cricket league for cricket lovers.
The BCCI announced the IPL 2024 Auction date and venue and for the first time, the IPL Mini Auction 2024 will be held overseas at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai on 19th December.
In December, both the Men’s IPL Mini Auction 2024 and WPL (Women’s Premier League) 2024 will be held. IPL 2024 will be followed by WPL 2024’s second season auction on 9th December 2023.
The Kolkata Night Riders are also getting ready for the upcoming 2024 IPL Season. The KKR is the most successful franchise in the IPL, bagged two IPL trophies under the captaincy of former skipper Gautam Gambhir.
KKR didn’t have a season they wanted in IPL 2023, but there were remarkable performances by some of their players in the season. They were also playing in the absence of their regular skipper Shreyas who was ruled out of the entire season due to injury.
Now, with Iyer back in action, KKR will be looking to have another memorable outing in IPL 2024 with a third title to their name.
So let’s have a look at the KKR retained and Released players list for the IPL 2024 season.
KKR Team for IPL 2024 (Updated)
Wicketkeepers: KS Bharat, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (AFG).
Batters: Shreyas Iyer, Jason Roy (ENG), Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sherfane Rutherford (WI), Manish Pandey.
All-rounders: Andre Russell (WI), Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Ramandeep Singh.
Bowlers: Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine (WI), Vaibhav Arora, Chetan Sakariya, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Mitchell Starc (AUS), Gus Atkinson (ENG), Sakib Hussain, Mujeeb Ur Rahman (AFG).
KKR Target Players in IPL 2024 Auction (anticipated)
In order to clinch their third title, KKR must build a strong squad for IPL 2024 with some impactful players. The batting lineup looks strong with the likes of Jason Roy, Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana and Rinku Singh. While Sunil Narine, Lockie Ferguson and Umesh Yadav could look after the bowling attack. Apart from these, KKR may be looking to add Australia’s Mitchell Starc. The left-arm pacer from Australia has confirmed that he will be available for IPL 2024, and his inclusion could provide more strength to KKR’s bowling lineup. While in batting, KKR could opt for Sikandar Raza in the auction. The Zimbabwe skipper is a handy middle order batter and could provide a needed acceleration in the middle overs.
Below are some top players, Kolkata Night Riders would target in the IPL 2024 Mini Auction at Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai.
| No. | Target Players in IPL 2024 |
|---|---|
| 1 | Mitchell Starc |
| 2 | Litton Das |
| 3 | Tim Southee |
| 4 | Gerald Coetzee |
KKR Retained Players IPL 2024 : Complete List
Skipper Shreyas Iyer is back for some IPL action. In this 2023 World Cup Shreyas scored 530 runs in the 11 innings and became the seventh player in ICC’s most scorer list for the 2023 World Cup.
Shreyas Iyer’s absence in the 2023 IPL edition Nitish Rana had the command of KKR and did a good job. So in the 2024 IPL, Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, and Litton Das are confirmed Kolkata Night Riders retention.
These are the top Kolkata Night Riders players retained for IPL 2024. The rest of the retained KKR players for the IPL 2024 list are listed below.
Let’s have a look at the list of all players which are likely to get retained by KKR ahead of IPL 2024 auction:
| NO. | Retained Players |
|---|---|
| 1 | Andre Russell |
| 2 | Anukul Roy |
| 3 | Harshit Rana |
| 4 | Jason Roy |
| 5 | Nitish Rana |
| 6 | Rahmanullah Gurbaz |
| 7 | Rinku Singh |
| 8 | Shreyas Iyer |
| 9 | Sunil Narine |
| 10 | Suyash Sharma |
| 11 | Vaibhav Arora |
| 12 | Varun Chakaravarthy |
| 13 | Venkatesh Iyer |
Also see: Top 10 Players With Highest Strike Rate in IPL
KKR Released Players IPL 2024: Trade Players List
West Indian cricketer Andre Russell has been a pivotal player for KKR throughout the years and has made the team win on multiple occasions from tough situations. However, Russell hasn’t been seen in that old touch from the last couple of years. It looks like KKR may not continue with Russell and release him ahead of the IPL 2024 auction.
Apart from him, KKR could also let go of some of their old players ahead of the auction.
Let’s have a look at the full list of players that KKR released ahead of the IPL 2024 auction:
| NO. | Released Players |
|---|---|
| 1 | Aarya Desai |
| 2 | David Wiese |
| 3 | Johnson Charles |
| 4 | Kulwant Khejroliya |
| 5 | Litton Das |
| 6 | Lockie Ferguson |
| 7 | Mandeep Singh |
| 8 | N. Jagadeesan |
| 9 | Shakib Al Hasan |
| 10 | Shardul Thakur |
| 11 | Tim Southee |
| 12 | Umesh Yadav |
KKR IPL 2024 Coaching Staff
Former Indian cricketer Chandrakant Pandit will lead the KKR coaching staff in IPL 2024. While James Foster and Bharat Arun will also continue their roles as batting and bowling coaches respectively. However, there are also speculations that the former skipper Gautam Gambhir may also join KKR again as a Head Coach. However, these are only rumors and nothing is confirmed yet.
Let’s have a look at the full coaching staff of KKR for IPL 2024:
Chandrakant Pandit (Head Coach), James Foster (Batting coach), Bharat Arun (Bowling coach), Abhishek Nayar (assistant coach), Chris Donaldson (strength and conditioning coach), AR Srikkanth (talent scouting and player acquisitions), Ryan ten Doeschate (fielding coach), Omkar Salvi (assistant bowling coach)
KKT IPL History
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) is one of the original franchises of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and has seen varying degrees of success over the years. Here’s a brief overview of KKR’s performance in the IPL up until my last training cut-off in January 2023:
| Year | Position | Captain | Notable Achievement |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 6th | Sourav Ganguly | N/A |
| 2009 | 8th | Brendon McCullum | N/A |
| 2010 | 6th | Sourav Ganguly | N/A |
| 2011 | 4th | Gautam Gambhir | Reached the Playoffs |
| 2012 | Champions | Gautam Gambhir | Won their 1st IPL title |
| 2013 | 7th | Gautam Gambhir | N/A |
| 2014 | Champions | Gautam Gambhir | Secured their 2nd IPL title |
| 2015 | 5th | Gautam Gambhir | N/A |
| 2016 | 4th | Gautam Gambhir | Reached the Playoffs |
| 2017 | 3rd | Gautam Gambhir | Reached the Qualifier 2 |
| 2018 | 3rd | Dinesh Karthik | Reached the Qualifier 2 |
| 2019 | 5th | Dinesh Karthik | N/A |
| 2020 | 5th | Dinesh Karthik/Eoin Morgan | N/A |
| 2021 | 2nd | Eoin Morgan | Runners-up |
| 2022 | 7th | Shreyas Iyer | League stage |
| 2023 | 7th | Nitish Rana | League stage |
KKR Performance in IPL 2023
| S.No | Date | Match | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Apr-01 | PBKS win by 7 runs (D/L) | Mohali |
| 2 | Apr-06 | KKR won by 81 runs | Kolkata |
| 3 | Apr-09 | KKR won by 3 wickets | Ahmedabad |
| 4 | Apr-14 | SRH win by 23 runs | Kolkata |
| 5 | Apr-16 | MI win by 5 wickets | Mumbai |
| 6 | Apr-20 | DC win by 4 wickets | Delhi |
| 7 | Apr-23 | CSK win by 49 runs | Kolkata |
| 8 | Apr-26 | KKR win by 21 runs | Bengaluru |
| 9 | Apr-29 | GT win by 7 wickets | Kolkata |
| 10 | May-04 | KKR win by 5 runs | Hyderabad |
| 11 | May-08 | KKR win by 5 wickets | Kolkata |
| 12 | May-11 | RR win by 9 wickets | Kolkata |
| 13 | May-14 | KKR win by 6 wickets | Chennai |
| 14 | May-20 | LSG win by 1 run | Kolkata |
Kolkata Knight Riders started their IPL journey with mixed results but found their rhythm under the captaincy of Gautam Gambhir, clinching the title in 2012 and 2014. In subsequent years, they’ve remained competitive, often securing spots in the playoffs or finishing close to them. The 2021 season saw them finishing as runners-up, showcasing their continuous quest for excellence.
