"It's always difficult to lose such players and when they do such well" - KKR CEO Venky Mysore on losing key players in recent times
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) CEO Venky Mysore spoke about the players that the franchise has had to let go of over the last couple of years in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The two-time winners retained Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, and Venkatesh Iyer after the 2021 season.
While KKR were able to rope back some players like Nitish Rana at the mega auction, they lost the services of players like Shubman Gill and Kuldeep Yadav. The young opening batter was groomed by KKR after spending his initial IPL years at the franchise following the 2018 U-19 World Cup triumph.
Even Ajinkya Rahane, who was part of the squad in 2022 and was released, is having a prolific season with the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the moment.
Stating that the franchise is happy for former KKR players who are currently playing well. The CEO told reporters on the sidelines of the Knight Golf event:
"There is actually happiness when we see some of the players we have developed go to other franchises and do well -- Shubman Gill is an example."
He continued:
"It's always difficult to lose such players and when they do such well. Yesterday also I was telling Gill (49) that I was enjoying your batting but I was hoping that you would not take the game away from us. score some runs, but let us... (win)."
Gill recently scored a crucial 49-run knock at the top of the order in the Gujarat Titans' (GT) successful run chase against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Eden Gardens. The youngster is having yet another prolific season having already tallied 333 runs from eight innings.
"It's never a regret" - Venky Mysore on KKR's decision to let go of certain players in the past
Venky Mysore stated that KKR do not regret losing players because the decisions were made at the time with due diligence. Other former players like Piyush Chawla and Rahul Tripathi have also emerged as key players for their respective new franchises.
However, all of KKR's recent big-money signings have struggled to make a mark in the ongoing season so far.
Opining that the IPL's rules made things trickier and unfair for them, Venky Mysore said:
"The limitation as you know, the rules the IPL and BCCI make. In 2022 auction, we were allowed to keep only four players. There's always a debate. There is always eight or nine whom we would like to keep, you had to select four out of those." "It's tough but that's the system though."
He continued:
"It happens to every team. (KKR captain) Shreyas (Iyer) was with Delhi and he's with us, so on and forth... I can give any number of example." "It's never a regret, and the decisions were made based on the set of information that was available at that point. We believe those were the right decisions we made, but it's always tough to lose some players."
The Nitish Rana-led side are close to missing out on playoffs action for the second consecutive season as they have amassed only six points from nine matches so far and are languishing in the eighth spot.