Leg and off: Should KKR release Andre Russell and Sunil Narine ahead of IPL 2025 auction?
Almost like every season in the last three years, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) find themselves at the crossroads of a big decision on Andre Russell and Sunil Narine, which can decide the franchise's future. The only difference this time ahead of the IPL 2025 auction is that the franchise is coming off a title win.
It wasn't just any title win. Both Russell and Narine were pillars to what was one of the best team efforts ever seen in the tournament: Narine took at least one wicket in every game apart from scoring almost 500 runs as an opener, while Rusell was KKR's game-changer, taking 19 wickets and batting with a strike rate of 185.
However, they are both 37 years old and would be 38 during IPL 2025. Is retaining them ahead of some of the most exciting youngsters in the competition worth the risk? It would be the most important question for their compatriot Deayne Bravo, the new KKR mentor's early tenure. We debate it in this latest edition of Leg and Off:
Why KKR should retain Russell and Narine
Retaining all crucial players isn't necessary in IPL 2025 because the BCCI has also allowed using a Right to Match (RTM) instead of one of the six retentions.
That means a franchise should retain each player they think is worth more than a particular salary slab (₹18 crore, ₹14 crore, and so on) and release those who they think they can RTM back at a lower price in the auction.
This short-term idea makes retaining Russell and Narine quite tempting. The balance and depth their four overs and batting add to a team can make them a hot property in the auction for teams like the Punjab Kings looking for short-term success.
The all-rounders have maintained decent performances after the IPL too. Narine has a similar wicket-taking streak in the Caribbean Premier League, though his batting isn't quite the same, while Russell has been in decent touch without luck.
Unlike in football, KKR don't have to worry about Russell and Narine's declining value due to age, because there's no transfer system here. If KKR retain them for, say, ₹32 crore, they can release them next year and get the same amount back.
At least for the next season, they would be good additions to the team. We've seen with the Chennai Super Kings and Bravo himself that experience is an underrated virtue in the IPL, plus Russell and Narine's bodies aren't pushed through as much rigor as a full-time international all-format cricketer, which should help their fitness.
They have been the two most loyal men for KKR, even ahead of Gambhir, and that kind of quality is difficult to get in the auction. In that sense, it's not a gamble but a show of trust, which can push the legends to give their best again.
#Why KKR should let Russell and Narine go
There are always two ways to go about things and we can broadly and over-simplifying explain them as the CSK way and the Mumbai Indians (MI) way.
CSK stuck with their most experienced, loyal players and the same captain for years to create a family-like atmosphere, which worked; MI have often been more ruthless in picking and choosing skills over loyalties to win, which has also worked.
There's a good case to make for KKR to go the MI way this time. The best teams sometimes need to be ruthless and take short-term risks for long-term gains.
This is the best possible time to release Russell and Narine, or one of them because it'd be followed by a mega auction where they'll have more freedom to pick replacements and build a team in a new way.
It'd be a risk in the short term -- they can single-handedly defeat KKR while playing for their new team. But KKR can then invest more time in future stars like Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, and Angkrish Raghuvanshi, which would serve them for the next three years, and build a team that can peak in the next two years.
Russell and Narine are only good enough assets for a team at a ~₹10-18 core valuation if they can maintain at least 70-80% of the performance they put up last season. But that kind of consistency (and fitness) is a bit too much to expect out of them in 2025 when they'd be 39 and in 2026 when they'd be 40.
And then, given the new rule that mandates overseas players to register in a mega auction (like 2024) if they want to participate in the mid-cycle auctions (2025, 2026), the next two years would likely not have the best all-rounder options.
So, if Russell and Narine's performances wane by a big margin in 2025, KKR would have no chance but to release them in 2026. They'd have the money to spend in the next auction but hardly the best options to replace them.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to how much trust the KKR management has in those two. But if they want to solve the age-old problem of being overdependent on their performances, there wouldn't be a better time than this.