IPL 2018: 3 captaincy candidates for Kolkata Knight Riders
The 2018 IPL Auction turned out to be a big event for the entire cricketing fraternity around the globe. Franchises made a dash to stock up their teams for the upcoming 11th season of IPL. Many jaw-dropping bids were made for overseas and Indian players in the two-day auction.
Rajasthan Royals shot into the limelight by bagging the two biggest buys of the auction, England all-rounder Ben Stokes at Rs 12.5 crore and Indian pacer Jaydev Unadkat at Rs 11.5 Ccore. However, many franchises were able to steal a few marquee players at a bargain price - like Faf Du Plessis (Chennai Super Kings), Colin Munro (Delhi Daredevils).
Although Kolkata Knight Riders had spent all the money in their purse, they were only able to procure 19 players into the squad (This eventually, turned out to be the least number of players acquired by any franchise in the auction). KKR did not pick up any big-ticket Indian player into their squad. It also missed opportunities to hold on the likes of Manish Pandey and Surya Kumar Yadav.
The biggest challenge that lie for the team is to select the Captain of the squad. Gautam Gambhir, who led the franchise as captain to title victories, will not be part of the squad this season. It will take some extra effort for any current player to fit into the massive shoes of Gambhir.
Let us have a detailed look at the three most probable options for the management to pick from the 19-men squad.
3. Robin Uthappa
The KKR franchise used the Right to Match (RTM) on Robin Uthappa when the Mumbai Indians were all set to acquire him into their squad at a price of Rs 6.40 Crore.The right-handed batsman has been a stalwart for the Knights over the years.
Since his debut in IPL, he has played 149 matches with 4 different teams and scored 3735 runs. He is widely known as Mr. Consistent among the KKR fans for his record of scoring more than 40 runs in ten consecutive T20 matches (the only player to do so).
Uthappa’s experience and consistency over the years in the KKR make him one of the front-runners for the captaincy of the team.