Rajasthan Royals (RR) have brought in South African spin bowler Keshav Maharaj into their squad for the ongoing season of IPL 2024, while Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have also found the replacement for Mujeeb ur Rehman. The Afghanistan spinner has been replaced by his countryman Allah Ghazanfar, a 16-year-old right-arm offbreak or mystery spinner who has been picked by KKR at a base price of ₹20 Lakhs.
Prasidh Krishna, who is one of main pacers for RR, was ruled out of entire IPL 2024 ahead of the start of the season after a quadriceps injury and underwent surgery. The fast bowler is currently in his recovery phase and will not be able to take part in the entire season of the Indian T20 League. In his place, the Jaipur-based franchise have acquired the services of Keshav Maharaj at a price of ₹50 Lakhs.
Maharaj is a part of Durban Supergiants in the South Africa T20 (SA20) League and was seen training with Lucknow Supergiants ahead of IPL 2024. The South African cricketer will be seen playing for RR in the rest of the season. Maharaj has played 50 Tests, 44 ODIs and 27 T20Is for the Proteas so far taking 237 wickets across formats. Talking about KKR’s Allah Ghazanfar, he is a young aspiring talent in Afghanistan Cricket team and one of the youngest players in IPL 2024. He has played two ODI matches for Afghanistan but went wicketless on both occasions.Ghazanfar has also played three T20 matches in domestic cricket taking 5 scalps at an economy rate of 6.22.
Rajasthan Royals have a convincing start to IPL 2024, winning both of their games against Lucknow Supergiants and Delhi Capitals respectively. They will now travel to Mumbai to take on Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium on 1st April. Talking about KKR, they also defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad in their first match of the season in a high-scoring encounter at Eden Gardens. They are set to face Royal Challengers Bengaluru in their second match of the season at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on 29th April.