IPL 2023: Shubman Gill has been in fine form of late and has been nailing it for Gujarat Titans. While Kolkata Knight Riders are being trolled for letting go of him after IPL 2021, CEO Venky Mysore has no regrets and asserts having made the right call.
Former two-time champion Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) "do not regret" losing players who are now bringing laurels to other franchises, said team CEO and managing director Venky Mysore on Sunday, adding they made the decisions based on "available information". Young opener Shubman Gill's loss has been defending champion Gujarat Titans' (GT's) gain as the India opener played a crucial role in winning the title in its maiden appearance last season.
"There is happiness when we see some of the players we have developed go to other franchises and do well -- Shubman Gill is an example," Mysore told reporters on the sidelines of the Knight Golf event here. With 483 runs, Gill was among the top-five run-getter last season. This time too, the youngster has been in fine form with 333 runs from eight innings (41.62 average), which has put him behind Faf Du Plessis in the leading run scorers' list.
It's not just Gill. Former KKR players Kuldeep Yadav (Delhi Capitals), Piyush Chawla (Mumbai Indians) and Ajinkya Rahane (Chennai Super Kings) have been in fine form for their respective franchises. Rahane, who got limited opportunities at KKR last season, has been a transformed player under the talismanic MS Dhoni and made a Team India comeback in Tests after 15 months.
"It's always difficult to lose such players and when they do such well. Yesterday also, I told Gill I was enjoying your batting, hoping you would not take the game away from us. Score some runs, but let us... [win]," Mysore added. Gill scored a 49 in GT's seven-wicket win at the iconic Eden Gardens Stadium in Kolkata on Saturday that also took the defending champion to the top of the standings.
Blaming it on the Indian Premier League (IPL) rules, Mysore said: "The limitation, as you know, is the rules the IPL and BCCI [Board of Control for Cricket in India] make. In the 2022 auction, we were allowed to keep only four players. There's always a debate. There are 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. 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 examples. It's never a regret, and the decisions were made based on the information available at that point. We made those right decisions, but losing some players is always tricky," he continued.
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KKR had retained Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer and Sunil Narine ahead of IPL 2022. "Iyer, Varun took us to the final in 2021. Russell is arguably the best T20 [Twenty20] all-rounder. Narine, I don't have to say much about him. Those decisions were difficult, and you just let some players go in the process," he ascribed.
"Rahul Tripathi [₹8.5 crores to SunRisers Hyderabad], Lockie Ferguson [₹10 crores to GT], Prasidh Krishna [₹10 crore to Rajasthan Royals), you can name several of them who went for big money at auction. So, when you see those numbers, you feel happy for them. It's always a little backhanded compliment to our ability to bring and grow those players in our setup," Mysore expressed. Having endured its sixth defeat from nine matches, KKR now must win all its remaining five games to keep its playoff hopes alive.
We're not far away: Foster
Assistant coach James Foster said they are working extremely hard and are close to achieving that winning mantra. "We have been working very hard. The players are working exceptionally hard. Seeing the pitches and high-scoring games, I feel we are not far away," he said.
"Sometimes, there is a fine line between success and failure. We have been on the wrong side of that, but we have a few more games to go. We still have an opportunity to bounce back strongly. We did that two seasons ago when we were on a roll. We have to do that again," added Foster.
Terming losing their regular skipper Iyer to injury a "big loss", Foster said: "We have played some fantastic cricket at times in our campaign, and pretty much every time, we were in with a chance of winning. Every innings, there have been some standout performances from KKR's perspective. You probably need two or three other players to back that up and get us over the line slightly more."
On the fitness of Shardul Thakur, who did not bowl against GT on his comeback from a niggle, Foster said: "He is just coming back from a bit of niggle -- a hamstring issue. He is almost there from a fitness point of view."
(With inputs from PTI)