After a decent outing in the previous edition, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) released eight of their players while retained other 13 ahead of IPL 2019.
The two-time champions of the cash-rich league, last season, made wicketkeeper-batsman, Dinesh Karthik, the captain of their side and he didn’t disappoint both with his bat and as a skipper. They though lacked depth in the middle-order and quality pacers, costing them a chance to win the trophy for the third time.
The Shah Rukh Khan co-owned franchise would be wanting to get things done in the auction and hence succeed in the event, next year. They have 12 slots free, including seven Indian and five overseas and the remaining salary cap of 15.20 crore for the scheduled auction on December 18 in Jaipur.
There are also a lot of speculations that Gautam Gambhir might find his way back into the KKR franchise as a mentor, but that remains to be seen. The Knight Riders currently have one of the most deadly opening batting combinations in the tournament and will not want to tamper with it in any way.
Below is the salary of players retained by KKR for IPL 2019:
- Chris Lynn – ₹9.6 crore
- Sunil Narine – ₹8.5 crore
- Dinesh Karthik – ₹7.4 crore
- Andre Russell – ₹7 crore
- Robin Uthappa – ₹6.4 crore
- Kuldeep Yadav – ₹5.8 crore
- Piyush Chawla – ₹4.2 crore
- Nitish Rana – ₹3.4 crore
- Kamlesh Nagarkoti – ₹3.2 crore
- Shivam Mavi – ₹3 crore
- Shubman Gill – ₹1.8 crore
- Rinku Singh – ₹80 lakh
- Prasidh Krishna – ₹20 lakh
