Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) Strongest Playing XI For IPL 2023

Ahead of the start of the IPL 2023 season, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) appointed Nitish Rana as their interim captain in the absence of the injured Shreyas Iyer, who is nursing a back injury and is set to miss at least the first half of the tournament and could be more.

In Iyer’s absence, not only did KKR lose their skipper of last season, but also their leading run-scorer from last season, a strong, stability middle-order batter with a penchant to take down any spinner in the world.

KKR finished 7th in IPL 2022 with 6 wins and 8 losses

kkr ipl 2023

ipl 2023 kkr

Starting from the IPL 2023, Knight Riders also have a new coaching staff with Chandrakant Pandit replacing Brendon McCullum as head coach and Bharat Arun appointed bowling coach.

Kolkata had made a wholesale of releases ahead of the IPL 2023 auction, where they made some purchases of talented Indian cricketers – Vaibhav Arora (60 Lakh), N Jagadeesan (90 Lakh), Mandeep Singh (50 Lakh) – along with 3 renowned and experienced overseas T20 players: David Wiese (1 Cr), Litton Das (50 Lakh), Shakib Al Hasan (1.50 Cr).

Ahead of the auction, Kolkata had roped in Shardul Thakur from Delhi, Lockie Ferguson, and Rahmanullah Gurbaz from Gujarat to bolster their stocks.

Here is KKR’s strongest, predicted XI for IPL 2023:

Venkatesh Iyer, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Nitish Rana (C), Narayan Jagadeesan(wk), Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson/Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy

KKR have quite a few options to choose from: they can easily go with Shakib Al Hasan or Litton Das in place of Gurbaz and can promote either or Rana, or Narine as an opener while still retaining the batting depth. Mandeep Singh and N Jagadeesan are two in-form batting options.

shardul Thakur ipl 2023

In David Weise and Tim Southee, KKR have experienced players as well who can replace Russell if he’s not fit for all matches. Vaibhav Arora and Kulwant Khejrolia are other good domestic pace bowling options that KKR can use.

Kolkata Knight Riders Final Squad For IPL 2023:

Nitish Rana (C), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Anukul Roy, Rinku Singh, Narayan Jagadeesan, Vaibhav Arora, Suyash Sharma, David Weise, Kulwant Khejrolia, Mandeep Singh, Litton Das, Shakib Al Hasan, Shreyas Iyer (subject to fitness)