Once more, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) held the trophy after ten years during this IPL season when they comfortably triumphed against SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the last match of the season. KKR hasn’t tasted IPL glory since 2014 when Gautam Gambhir was its captain. Interestingly enough, he returned to KKR just ahead of IPL 2024; moving from Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), he became a mentor there. However, after orchestrating KKR’s win in IPL for months Gambhir left to become Indian men’s cricket team’s head coach in July this year.
He did not only take with him other members of KKR’s support staff like Abhishek Nair but also brought along Ryan ten Doeschate who has also joined as an Assistant Coaches at the Indian senior men’s cricket team.
But KKR has begun searching for Gambir’s successor who would work with Chandrakant Pandit head coach at the helm.
Yet, KKR have got underway with the procedure for selecting a substitute for Gambhir, who will be able to support the head coach Chandrakant Pandit.
As reported by Sangbad Pratidin, KKR is looking forward to employing one of their own legends Jacques Kallis as a mentor.
For those who don’t know, Kallis was part of their coaching staff before, being a main coach in 2015 and batting consultant in the same year.
In 2012 and 2014 seasons when KKR won its titles, Kallis played under Gambhir’s captaincy.
Earlier reports suggested that KKR are also eyeing on Ricky Ponting and Kumar Sangakkara for the post.
This year, Ponting resigned from his position as the head coach for Delhi Capital while Sangakkara who currently works at Rajasthan Royals as cricket director was on the lookout for something new.
However, he seems likely to remain at RR where Rahul Dravid just joined them recently in the capacity of head coach.
Moreover, Dravid has a strong bond with RR’s skipper Sanju Samson who used to play under-19 while being coached by him during his time as India’s junior team manager.
In fact, Dravid was also an active player for Royals franchise. He captained this team in 2012 and 2013 seasons before serving as team director then mentor during 2014-2015 spans respectively.
