Players
Sourav Ganguly, the former captain of the Indian cricket team was the icon player and led the Kolkata franchise in the inaugural season 2008 and 2010. He was released during the 2011 season. The earlier team also included all rounders Chris Gayle, David Hussey, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Angelo Mathews, wicket keeper batsmen Brendon McCullum, Wriddhiman Saha. The main bowlers are Shane Bond, Ishant Sharma, Ashok Dinda, Ajit Agarkar and Murali Karthik. Australian batsman Bradley Hodge and Sri Lankan bowler Ajantha Mendis were bought outside IPL Auction on 2008.
At the 2009 auction the team bought Bangladeshi all-rounder Mashrafe Mortaza. It also includes Charl Langeveldt who was signed outside of the auction. Due to unavailability of Pakistani players in 2009, KKR had to suspend contract of key performer from the 2008 season Umar Gul. On 26 April 2009, KKR administration sent back two of its players Akash Chopra and Sanjay Bangar on the premises of poor performance. Shane Bond was the latest KKR acquisition after releasing Ricky Ponting, Morne van Wyk, Umar Gul, Salman Butt, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Akhtar for IPL III. Moises Henriques was traded to Delhi in return for Owais Shah and Manoj Tiwary. Their international players for the 2010 season were – Shane Bond, Mashrafe Mortaza, Brendon McCullum, Charl Langeveldt, Ajantha Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Brad Hodge, David Hussey, Owais Shah and Chris Gayle.
In the 2011 season, KKR drastically revamped their squad. Former captain and icon player Sourav Ganguly was not purchased in the January auction. The team appointed Gautam Gambhir, who was bought for a record-breaking $2.4 million as skipper. Yusuf Pathan was also picked up for a whopping $ 2.1 million. Other international names who were added include Shakib Al Hasan, Brad Haddin, Jacques Kallis, Brett Lee, Ryan ten Doeschate, Eoin Morgan, James Pattinson. Haddin was replaced by Mark Boucher mid-season due to injury.
In the 2012 auction, KKR bought back their former batsman, Brendon McCullum. They also acquired West Indian spinner Sunil Narine and South African fast bowler Marchant de Lange. The team later added four domestic players to their squad, including Debabrata Das and Iresh Saxena from Bengal, Saurashtra's Chirag Jani and Sanju Samson from Kerala.
In November 2012, KKR released four players from their team : Iresh Saxena, Chirag Jani, Sanju Samson and Jaydev Unadkat. In the 2013 auction, the team bought two overseas players, Sachithra Senanayake and Ryan McLaren.
Read more about this topic: Kolkata Knight Riders
Famous quotes containing the word players:
“Yeah, percentage players die broke too, don’t they, Bert?”
—Sydney Carroll, U.S. screenwriter, and Robert Rossen. Eddie Felson (Paul Newman)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“Will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them
be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)