Kolkata Knight Riders Retain 13 Players, Release Starc & Johnson

Kolkata Knight Riders have retained 13 of their 21 players for the upcoming season of the IPL.

Andre Russell, Robin Uthappa and Kuldeep Yadav are among the 13 players retained by KKR for IPL 2019.

(Photo: BCCI)

Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc and Tom Curran have been released by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), and will make their way back into the IPL auction kitty for the twelfth edition of the league. Among the eight players who have been let go off, five are foreign while three are uncapped players from India.

KKR CEO and MD Venky Mysore in a statement clarified the news about Australian pacer Mitchell Starc being informed about his release via text message. After acquiring Starc for a fee of Rs. 9.40 crore at the 2018 auction, the franchise had to make do without his services as he sat out the last season due to injury.

“It has been picked up out of context, because we (KKR and Starc) have had a great relationship. Even when we picked him last year, not only was he over the moon, but he was also appreciative towards the confidence we had shown in him. He was extremely disappointed he couldn’t come here for last year’s IPL, and to be frank, so were we. It left a big hole in our line up. This time, when we had an exchange of messages, he was appreciative of where we were coming from. It was very cordial, and professional type of an exchange.”

Venky Mysore

He further said that the franchise had taken into consideration that the Australian and English cricketers would not be available for the complete season due to upcoming World Cup next year.

“The Australian board (CA) has apparently said that among their players featuring in the IPL, those who will be appearing in the World Cup, will have to return (for national duty) no later than 1 May. The English board (ECB) has apparently got a similar clause, so that will be an important consideration.”

The two-time champions have however retained a bulk of their squad from the previous edition. Out of the 21-member squad that played IPL 11, KKR has retained 13 including senior players Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa and Sunil Narine. Hence, they will now go into the auction with a salary cap of Rs 15.20 crore and 12 available slots that they can fill with 7 India and 5 foreign players.

Shivam Mavi, Shubhman Gill, Kamlesh Nagarkoti – all three players who had been picked after their performances in India’s U-19 World Cup-winning campaign have been retained by KKR.

“The retention was triggered by how our season went in 2018. As we all know, we had a big auction before the last edition, where we assembled a new team. We had retained only Andre Russell and Sunil Narine (on that occasion), so it was practically a new squad, and we were quite excited by the way the season evolved. We have retained 13 players now, including Kamlesh Nagarkoti. He was injured and he unfortunately couldn’t play for us. He is still recovering, but given the skills and ability he has – we picked him with that intention, and we have retained him again.”

Venky Mysore, KKR CEO and MD

Retained: Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shivam Mavi, Kuldeep Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Prasidh Krishna

Released: Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Johnson, Tom Curran, Cameron Delport, Javon Searles, Ishank Jaggi, Apoorv Wankhade, Vinay Kumar