With IPL 2023 here, who will be the new Kolkata Knight Riders captain?

With IPL 2023 here, who will be the new Kolkata Knight Riders captain?

The 16th edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) will start from March 31, and just days before that Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have received a major setback.

Their captain Shreyas Iyer has been ruled out of at least half of the tournament due to a back injury. Iyer reported the injury during the fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia and was taken to the hospital. It was found that his back injury had not healed completely and that he would need a surgery.

His absence from IPL has put KKR management in trouble as even their backup captain Pat Cummins has opted out of this season due to personal reasons. The team has to now come up with a someone else to lead the team.

Who can be the new captain? If we go by previous captaincy experiences, then Bangladesh allrounder Shakib Al Hasan would be the most logical choice to be named as the skipper of the team.

He is the current captain of the T20 and Test teams of Bangladesh cricket team. The team management would have given it some thought because Shakib was the highest buy of KKR this season at Rs 1.5 crore from the 7 crore purse the team had at the auctions.

Apart from Shakib, Nitish Rana will also be an option for the captaincy role at KKR. Rana has been with the team since 2018 and understands the dressing room well. Also, he is a domestic player and the team in that case can easily pick the four overseas players for the matches.

In case of Shakib or Sunil Narine, the team can only pick only 3 more overseas players.

According to ESPN Cricinfo, Sunil Narine and Nitish Rana are the frontrunners for the captaincy role.

Andre Russel’s name was also floated among the contenders for the captaincy for KKR.

Who has the better chance? At present, Shakib has the better chance of getting the captaincy because of his previous experience.

In the absence of Shreyas Iyer or Pat Cummins, who had captaincy experiences before getting into KKR, Shakib will be a fine choice.