Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) CEO Venky Mysore said that the franchise has no regrets about its decision not to retain players like Shubman Gill, who are performing brilliantly for the other franchises in the Indian Premier League. Kolkata retained Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy, and Venkatesh Iyer, however, they had to let go of Shubman Gill, Ajinkya Rahane, and Kuldeep Yadav, who are performing well for the other franchises.
Shubman Gill joined Kolkata Knight Riders in the 2018 edition of the Indian Premier League after his heroics for the India U19 team in the youth World Cup that year. He was a part of the franchise till IPL 2021 and played 58 games for them, scoring 1417 runs including 10 half-centuries.
Venky Mysore Statement On Not Retaining Shubman Gill
Gill is now plying his trade for Gujarat Titans, the team that he joined in IPL 2022 and since then he has become an integral part of the squad. He scored 483 runs in GT’s IPL 2022 title-winning run including the highest score of 96 runs. In the ongoing IPL 2023, Gill has made 333 runs in 8 matches thus far with 3 half-centuries.
Besides Gill, former KKR player Ajinkya Rahane whom they had roped in during the IPL 2022 auction but later released, is now striking at over 200 and has already scored 200 runs for his new team Chennai Super Kings. He has already played some crucial match-winning knocks for the 4-time IPL champs.
Kuldeep Yadav (Delhi Capitals), and Piyush Chawla (Mumbai Indians) are also in fine form for their respective franchises.
Speaking at a promotional event KKR CEO Venky Mysore said that he has no regret about not retaining the likes of Shubman Gill amongst other players as they made the decisions based on “available information”. He said:
“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. 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 added: “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),”
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 all-rounder, Narine I don’t have to say much about him. Those decisions were difficult and in the process you just let some players go. Rahul Tripathi (8.5 crores to Sunrisers Hyderabad), Lockie Ferguson (Rs 10 crores GT), Prasidh Krishna (Rs 10 crore to Rajasthan Royals) you can name several of them who went for big money at auction.
So when you see those types of numbers you feel happy for them. It’s always a little backhanded compliment to our ability to bring those types of players and grow them in our setup,” Mysore said.
