IPL 2024: A Comprehensive Analysis Of The Kolkata Knight Riders For The New IPL Season

Owned by Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla, Kolkata Knight Riders are one of only three teams (Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings being the others) to win multiple IPL titles. They shelled out INR 262.5 crores (approximately USD 75 million) in 2008 to acquire the franchise and captivated cricket fans immediately with a peppy number ‘Korbo Lorbo Jitbo’, which translates to ‘Do, Play, Win’.

They won the last of their two titles in 2014. Last year, they missed the playoffs under new coach Chandrakant Pandit. Without Shreyas Iyer, who was injured, the team lacked a momentum-changing batter at the top. Iyer is back this year to lead, even though there is an injury cloud over him after back spams have flared up.

Another man who returns to the setup he firmly established and helped win two titles as captain is Gautam Gambhir, who re-joins as a mentor. Over the years, he has backed Sunil Narine, the West Indies mystery spinner who first came on board in 2012, and Andre Russell, the Jamaican allrounder. Narine, in particular, enjoyed some of his best years under Gambhir. With them re-uniting this season, can he ignite the old sparks and help deliver a crown for KKR?

Gambhir’s role encompasses the wider leadership group. It’ll need him to make strategic calls with the ownership, just like the one they had taken not to retain him ahead of 2018 when they chose to bring in Dinesh Karthik as captain. Midway through 2020, Karthik resigned with Eoin Morgan, England’s 2019 World Cup-winning captain, taking over and leading them to the final in 2021. That is the closest they got to the title since winning it in 2014.

Shreyas Iyer was named captain ahead of IPL 2022 after he was bought at the auction for INR 12.25 crore, but he didn’t have a great season. He missed 2023 due to a back injury and returns in 2024 to take over the captaincy from stand-in skipper Nitish Rana.

He will be guided in the back room by Chandrakant Pandit, the only Indian head coach in the competition, and a hugely successful one at that, having led Indian domestic teams Mumbai, Vidarbha and Madhya Pradesh to multiple Ranji Trophy titles.

KKR went all out to get Mitchell Starc by paying the most a player has been signed for at an auction (INR 24.75 crore). Their other significant auction signings are Pandey (at a base price of INR 50 lakh) to shore up the middle order, Phil Salt, the England wicketkeeper, as a replacement for Jason Roy, who has pulled out of the competition, and Afghanistan mystery spinner Mujeeb ur Rahman, who joins the likes of Narine and Varun Chakravarthy.

The one area of concern this year will be the pace department, especially with their Indian pacers lacking experience. Russell comes back fitter, as does Venkatesh Iyer, the India all-rounder who broke through the ranks after a stellar season in 2021. Venkatesh Iyer didn’t bowl last year due to an injury but should double up this time around.

The bigger question revolves around their opening combination. At the moment, it’s likely Afghanistan’s Rahmamullah Gurbaz will open with Venkatesh Iyer. Gurbaz aside, Narine, Russell and Starc are likely to be their overseas personnel to begin with.

KKR had a dismal beginning, failing to make the playoffs for the first three years. Sourav Ganguly was captain in two of these seasons (2008 and 2010), while Brendon McCollum took over the top job in 2009 after then-head coach John Buchanan proposed an ‘out-of-the-box’ multiple captains theory that would soon expose friction between Ganguly and the management. They finished last that year, and Buchanan left.

In 2011, the franchise roped in a CEO, Venky Mysore, to run the cricketing affairs. Mysore began his stint with one of the bravest moves in franchise history at the time by releasing Ganguly from his contract, even though it brought with it the risk of losing a sizable fan base.

At the auction, they broke the bank to sign Gautam Gambhir as their new captain. He responded by taking them to the playoffs in his first year, and the fans began to return.

Success followed in 2012 when KKR won their first-ever crown by beating CSK in the final. They’d add to their kitty in 2014 when they beat Punjab Kings courtesy of a sensational Manish Pandey knock at his home ground—M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru—to usher in title No. 2.