The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), the current champions of the Indian Premier League (IPL), will have to reshuffle their players at the end of IPL 2025 mega auction due to the fact that the majority of their title-winning squad has been released. With Australian pacer Mitchell Starc as one of KKR’s major players in IPL 2024, who won Player of the match in both Qualifier 1 and the final match, the organization has lost a key player to injury. However, with Starc out of the picture, this time, KKR brace themselves for one big Indian pacer. That’s none other than left-arm fast bowler Arshdeep Singh who was the leading wicket-taker for India during the T20 World Cup 2024.
As mentioned in a previous edition of Mint, KKR are set to go all out for Arshdeep in the upcoming auction. In IPL 2024, the left-arm pacer claimed 19 wickets in 14 games, additionally bagging 17 wickets during the T20 World Cup 2024.
However, in IPL 2024, Arshdeep had an economy rate of over 10, which is something that will worry teams looking to acquire him.
Given that he is arguably the most tempting Indian pacer available in the auction pool, Arshdeep will attract the interest of several franchises and his price might even go higher than Rs 15 cr.
Arshdeep has played for Punjab Kings since 2019, but he was not directly rebuilt by the franchise prior to the mega auction. But, Arshdeep can still find a way back into Punjab as there are Rs 110.5 crore remaining in their auction purse and four Right to Match (RTM) cards with them.
KKR has already kept two quality spinners in Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy, two fast bowlers in Harshit Rana and Andre Russell also. Starc’s performance may be tough to match, but Arshdeep could also be of help. KKR will go for the mega auction with Rs 51 cr in the purse.
Starc’s initial performance in the IPL 2024 edition wasn’t all that impressive, especially after being acquired at a whopping IPL record of Rs 25 cr. However, when it mattered most, he put all the earlier disappointments into the background, mercilessly crushing Sunrisers Hyderabad in Qualifier 1 and the final to take a total of five wickets in those two matches combined.
