New Delhi: The winners of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), stunned the IPL fraternity with a shocking retention of Venkatesh Iyer at the IPL 2025 mega auction held in Jeddah on November 24 and 25. Venkatesh’s bid was a major highlight of Day 1 of the mega auction as he was bought back by KKR for a mind-boggling sum of Rs. 23.75 crores.
It seemed the main motive of KKR was to keep their core intact. They also went after South African speedster Anrich Nortje, who turned out to be their second top buy of the auction. They shelled out Rs. 6.5 crore on him, bolstering their pace attack and replacing Mitchell Starc with him. They also added wicketkeeper batter Quinton de Kock to their squad for a price of Rs. 3.6 crore, picking one of the quality explosive openers in the IPL history.
They went on to retain two more players from the squad of IPL 2023 whom they had released ahead of the mega auction. KKR picked Angkrish Raghuvanshi for Rs. 3 crore, retaining another explosive batter who looked promising last season, and also got back Rahmanullah Gurbaz for a price of Rs. 2 crore, adding another opener and quality wicketkeeper batter.
Spencer Johnson, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, and Moeen Ali were some other top picks for them at the IPL 2025 mega auction. They spent Rs. 50.95 crore at the auction and filled 21 players’ slots out of 25, with Rs. 5 lakh still in hand. They have 13 Indian players and eight overseas in their IPL 2025 squad.
Kolkata Knight Riders players list for IPL 2025
KKR players bought at IPL 2025 mega auction:
Venkatesh Iyer (Rs. 23.75 crore)
Quinton de Kock (Rs. 3.60 crore)
Rahmanullah Gurbaz (Rs. 2 crore)
Anrich Nortje (Rs. 6.50 crore)
Angkrish Raghuvanshi (Rs. 3 crore)
Vaibhav Arora (Rs. 1.80 crore)
Mayank Markande (Rs. 30 lakh)
Rovman Powell (Rs 1.50 crore)
Manish Pandey (Rs. 75 lakh)
Spencer Johnson (Rs. 2.80 crore)
Luvnith Sisodia (Rs. 30 lakh)
Ajinkya Rahane (Rs. 1.50 crore)
Anukul Roy (Rs. 40 lakh)
Moeen Ali (Rs. 2 crore)
Umran Malik (Rs. 75 lakh)
KKR retained players for IPL 2025
Rinku Singh (Rs. 13 crore)
Varun Chakravarthy (Rs. 12 crore)
Sunil Narine (Rs. 12 crore)
Andre Russell (Rs. 12 crore)
Ramandeep Singh (Rs. 4 crore)
Harshit Rana (Rs. 4 crore)
KKR full squad for IPL 2025: The IPL 2025 mega auction of KKR was highlighted by the massive buy of Venkatesh Iyer, whom the franchise retained for a huge sum. The franchise kept its core intact with some other decent buys. Cricket Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today