Shreyas Iyer, the captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), will miss the full lucrative tournament due to a recurring back injury, so the KKR will begin their IPL 2023 season without his services. Iyer looks to be out for a significant amount of time—roughly 5 months—which essentially disqualifies him from both the upcoming WTC Final and the IPL.
As a result, they must not only find a substitute for Iyer as captain while he is out, but also face the enormous challenge of finding Iyer’s perfect replacement as a batsman. Although KKR has some local Indian batting talent at their disposal, this season they will undoubtedly lament the right-hander’s international experience.
The Knight Riders would ideally like players like Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, and international stars like Sunil Narine and Andre Russell to contribute at various points throughout the season. They didn’t have the greatest IPL season last year, failing to make the playoffs, and will want to play their best game despite a diminished squad.
Let us look at some of the best batsmen in the KKR Squad for the 2023 season –
Due to his attacking style at the top of the batting order over the past couple of seasons, Venkatesh Iyer has established himself as a lock to be in the KKR starting XI. He had a fantastic start to his IPL campaign in 2021, scoring 370 runs in 10 innings at 41.11, but his second performance in the most recent season was appalling.
For the KKR squad over the past few years, Nitish Rana has consistently produced 300+ runs or more at a respectable rate in each of his last six IPL seasons. Due to Shreyas’ absence in the middle order this season, Rana has an even more important role to perform. The KKR selected veteran IPL batsman Mandeep Singh at the auctions, and he will presumably replace Iyer in the batting order. Mandeep, who has played more than 100 IPL games for different sides, is eager to demonstrate his skill at this level.
A revelation in international cricket over the past year or so has been Bangladeshi opener Liton Das, who owns the mark for the highest List However, Liton has yet to play in an IPL game.
On the other side, Jagadeesan was fired by the CSK team, and it appears that the KKR will give him a good run at the top of the order.
Regarding the all-rounders, KKR has a number of match-winners in this category. The KKR management will be eager for Andre Russell and Narine to stay healthy throughout the entire season because they have won many games for the team with both bat and ball. Russell has played in 98 IPL games, made just over 2000 runs at an incredible strike rate of 177, and claimed 89 wickets. In contrast, Narine has taken 152 victims to go with his 1025 runs in the IPL.