KKR on breaking the bank for Venkatesh

News”If given the responsibility, I would be more than happy to take it on,” Venkatesh says about the KKR captaincy

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) were among the two franchises – along with Rajasthan Royals (RR) – who came into the mega auction without any right-to-match (RTM) options in the bag, and they are getting close to retaining a majority of their core, although with the unexpected amount of INR 23.75 crore they shelled out for Venkatesh Iyer. But by spending a combined INR 5.60 crore on opening batters Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Quinton de Kock, the defending champions have “balanced off” after breaking the bank for Venkatesh.

Along with their retentions of Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Harshit Rana and Ramandeep Singh, and by buying Anrich Nortje again, they have nine players of ten from the squad that won IPL 2024.

“Auctions are this way only,” KKR CEO Venky Mysore said of splurging on Venkatesh. “At the end of the day it’s about the player you want and the type of player you want in the set-up. Of course, prices have a meaning within a certain band and so it surprises you all the time. When you have salary caps like this going up (INR 120 crore compared to 100 crore last auction), obviously [player] prices will also expand. For us it was about trying to keep our core. We’ve kept six players and brought 2-3 players back from last year. that was always the kind of thinking and as far as he (Venkatesh) is concerned we definitely did’t want to find ourselves in a situation where we may not be able to bing him back. But it always balances itself. When you look at Quinton de Kock (INR 3.60 crore) and Nortje (INR 6.50 crore) that we’ve picked, it balances off in many ways. On an overall basis, it all works out.

“They’ve proven on the field what they can do. You saw in a championship year, and one year we went to the final as well, in 2021. He (Venkatesh) was highly instrumental and terrific guy in the team. He had clearly given us an ultimatum that, ‘If you don’t pick me, I will be very sad’. So we didn’t want him to be sad, and we’re also very happy.”

The first day of the auction saw as many as three players bag deals of over INR 20 crore each, with two of them – former KKR captain Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant – breaking the previous record of the biggest IPL deals. When asked if he was surprised by the big price tags this time as many big-name players wanted to explore the market, Mysore said, “Not really, to be honest. Players put in their base prices only, we’re the ones who are raising the paddle. It’s always a function of what the availability of the purse is and in that situation and timing what not. I still maintain that the RTM rule should have been the old rule.”

Venkatesh Iyer ‘more than happy’ to be KKR captain

“I had the opportunity to captain the side in Nitish Rana’s absence when he was unfortunately injured, and I was the vice-captain as well,” Venkatesh was quoted as saying by PTI. “I’ve always believed that captaincy is just a tag, but leadership is about creating an environment where everyone feels they can play for this team and contribute. If given the responsibility, I would be more than happy to take it on. Together, we will aim to defend the championship and continue our winning campaign.”

Venkatesh became the third-most expensive buy at the IPL 2025 mega auction behind Pant and Shreyas.

“To be honest, I’m at a loss for words, but I’m elated to be part of the KKR team once again,” Venkatesh said. “The KKR coach [Chandrakant Pandit] was also my coach in Madhya Pradesh. We were discussing how I felt nervous about coming back to KKR. But again, it’s a message of the franchise’s focus on winning championships and player development and how much they value its players. I’m thrilled to play for KKR again and happy they’ve shown so much confidence in me.”

Vishal Dikshit is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo