Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have retained the West Indian duo of Sunil Narine and Andre Russell as the IPL franchises announced their list of retentions on Thursday in Mumbai. They have decided not to retain their skipper Gautam Gambhir.
Gautam Gambhir led the team to two IPL titles in 2012 and 2014. He was the second highest run-getter in the last season of IPL with 498 runs from 16 matches and the fourth highest run-getter in IPL history.
Gambhir joined the Kolkata franchisee in 2011 after the team failed to qualify for the playoffs for the first three seasons. Gambhir replaced local boy Sourav Ganguly as the KKR captain.
Both Sunil Narine and Andre Russell have done wonders for KKR in the last few years.
Sunil Narine joined the Kolkata team in 2012 and helped the side win their inaugural trophy in his very first season. He was second highest wicket taker with 24 wickets that season.
For the next few years Narine continued to weave a spell of mystery with his ‘knuckle’ ball, making life impossible for batsmen in IPL. He took a hattrick against Kings XI Punjab in the 2013 season.
Last season, Narine was promoted to open the batting for KKR and he didn’t disappoint. He was a revelation with the bat and was responsible for putting KKR off to great starts. He went on to score the fastest fifty of the season and joint fastest fifty in IPL history along with his KKR teammate Yusuf Pathan against Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2017.
Narine’s West Indian teammate Andre Russell has also proved to be a good buy for the team when he joined KKR in 2014.
Apart from opening the bowling, Russell’s hard hitting gives the team much needed impetus in the end overs of the innings.
It makes absolute sense that the KKR management went ahead with retaining Narine and Russell. Not only were the duo consistent performers for the team, but both are high on experience as far as T20 is concerned.
Narine and Russell have travelled all over the world and have been part of the Big Bash, Bangladesh Premier League, Pakistan Premier League.
As far as dropping Gambhir is concerned, the team management had to make a tough decision as the team was built around him in the last six years. But to be fair to them it was high time they looked towards the future and passed the captain’s mantle to somebody younger. Gambhir, who is pushing forty, is slowly losing the steam.
But everything is not over for Gambhir, the KKR management might have a trick or two left. They might decide to pick him up at the auction later this month using the ‘Right To Match’ card
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