Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders spent INR 23.75 to sign Venkatesh Iyer in the IPL 2025 mega-auction. They have released some of the key players from the previous season, such as Shreyas Iyer, Mitchell Starc and Nitish Rana, among others, and interestingly, all these players have done a commendable job so far for their respective teams.
Since KKR broke the bank for Venkatesh, they had to compromise on other departments and that has come back to haunt the team. The Ajinkya Rahane-led side has won only three out of eight matches this season, and another defeat can rule them out of the playoffs race. Next up, they host Punjab Kings on April 26 at the iconic Eden Gardens.
Ahead of that, former IPL Purple Cap winner RP Singh decoded KKR’s strategy in signing Venkatesh. He believes that the huge price tag might have put immense pressure on the cricketer and that is the reason Venkatesh has failed to live up to the expectations. The 30-year-old has scored 135 runs in eight matches, and that is nowhere close to his previous season with KKR.
“When a player is picked at such a high price in the auction, somewhere in your thoughts, you're considering him either as your main player or as a potential captaincy material. But here, he has turned out to be neither. So I feel that there has been a bit of a misjudgement from KKR during the auction, at the table during selection. You let go of your best captain, and now he's doing well captaining another team,” RP Singh said.
“Form issues can happen with any player, but usually, the more matches you play, the better your form gets gradually. Dropping him isn’t really a solution. What could be happening is that the amount of money he was bought for is playing on his mind. Maybe he’s thinking, “I was bought for such a huge amount, I must perform and take my team to the championship. That over-expectation might be creating pressure,” he added.