Kolkata Knight Riders head coach Brendon McCullum has expressed his disappointment over losing Shubman Gill ahead of the 2022 season of the Indian Premier League. The IPL 2021 runners-up decided to retain Andre Russell (₹12 cr), Varun Chakraborty (₹8 cr), Venkatesh Iyer (₹8 cr) and Sunil Narine (₹6 cr) ahead of the mega auction and forced them Gave. Released players like Shubman, Pat Cummins, Eoin Morgan and Dinesh Karthik.
However, Shubman has now joined the Ahmedabad franchise as he was selected as the third draft pick for the new team which will debut in the next season.
McCullum said that KKR will be ready for the upcoming mega IPL auction which will be held on February 12 and 13.
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“You need to plan because you will lose a lot of players. Losing Shubman Gill was disappointing. But life is like that sometimes and we will be well prepared for the upcoming auctions,” McCullum said in a statement to KKR. Said in live session.
Shubman was signed by KKR in 2018 after a stellar form in the ICC Under-19 World Cup. He scored 1417 runs in 58 matches for the two-time IPL champions at an average of 31.49.
The head coach also talked about KKR’s retention picks for the upcoming season of IPL.
“Sunil Narain and Andre Russell have proved to be campaigners for over a decade. We all have seen what Varun Chakravarthy has been able to do in the last two seasons. Venkatesh Iyer was probably the story of the second half of IPL 2021,” McCullum said.
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McCullum also defended Australian pacer Pat Cummins, who faced scrutiny for his poor performance in the past few seasons. Cummins was signed by KKR for a whopping sum of INR 15.5 Crores, however, the franchise released him before the 2022 mega auction.
“I think Pat Cummins was a really good buy. While some would say he didn’t perform as well as he should have, I disagree. He’s statistically brilliant in all subjects without being a really high achiever.” You are ready to work hard for people like him,” said the former New Zealand captain.
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