3 young KKR batters to watch out for in IPL 2024 ft. Angkrish Raghuvanshi
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have assembled one of the strongest squads in IPL 2024. Gautam Gambhir returned as the team's mentor, and they made some smart purchases at this season's player auction.
The Kolkata Knight Riders grabbed the headlines when they splurged ₹24.75 crore to sign Australian speedster Mitchell Starc. While most fans focused on Starc's signing only, the Knight Riders also managed to sign some talented young Indian players.
Besides, they already had a few exceptional young batters in their squad. On their day, Kolkata Knight Riders have the potential to destroy any bowling lineup in the world. Everyone will have their eyes on the likes of Shreyas Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer and Nitish Rana.
However, here's a list of three young Kolkata Knight Riders batters to watch out for in IPL 2024:
#1 Angkrish Raghuvanshi joined KKR ahead of IPL 2024
Angkrish Raghuvanshi is one of the youngest cricketers in this year's IPL. Born in 2005, Raghuvanshi is a right-handed batter, who won the ICC U-19 World Cup in 2022. He was born in Delhi but plays domestic cricket for Mumbai.
So far in his short career, Raghuvanshi has played five List-A matches and seven T20s. In the T20 format, the 18-year-old has aggregated 138 runs at a strike rate of 115.96. His average stands at 23, while his highest score is 32*.
Although his numbers in domestic cricket may not seem so impressive, fans should not forget that he played a magnificent knock of 144 runs for India U-19s in an U-19 World Cup match against Uganda U-19s two years ago. The youngster has the talent to make it big and it will be interesting to see if KKR provide him opportunities to prove himself.
#2 Rahmanullah Gurbaz
Rahmanullah Gurbaz joined the Kolkata Knight Riders last year; he was signed during the pre-season trading window. Gurbaz warmed the bench at GT in IPL 2022, but played 11 matches for KKR last season.
In those 11 games, the 22-year-old from Afghanistan scored 227 runs. His average was only in the 20s, but his highest score was 81*. Gurbaz has proven himself as a match-winner for Afghanistan at the international level and is more than capable of reproducing that form in the IPL.
However, the team management will expect more consistency from Gurbaz this season, especially with Phil Salt waiting in the wings.
#3 Sherfane Rutherford
Sherfane Rutherford received a ₹1.5 crore contract from the Kolkata Knight Riders at the IPL 2024 Auction. Rutherford has played for the Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals and Royal Challengers Bangalore.
The Guyanese played a total of 10 matches for the three franchises, scoring 106 runs at a strike rate of 101.92. Even though his IPL career has been rather ordinary so far, KKR have signed him because of his exploits in other T20 leagues.
In his T20 career, the 25-year-old batting all-rounder has amassed 2,178 runs in 112 innings at a strike rate of almost 135. Kolkata have signed Rutherford as a potential backup for Andre Russell, but he will be hoping for a fair bit of game time this season.