The discussions headlined in Kolkata Knight Riders' circuit after the auction was around Venkatesh Iyer's acquisition for a mind-boggling 23.75 crore. The knock-on effect of the purchase was that KKR had to part ways with Shreyas Iyer, Phil Salt, & Mitchell Starc while they managed to gather the rest of their class of 2024 through retentions and buybacks. Losing Shreyas meant they lost one-half of their strike force against spin in the middle phase from their victorious 2024 campaign.
IPL 2025
Data Shorts: KKR feel the pinch of a spin squeeze
KKR's middle-order faltered against spin © IPL
In the middle overs last season, Sunil Narine smashed at 178 against spin while Shreyas struck at 144 at an average of 114. Ajinkya Rahane and Quinton de Kock, the respective replacements for Shreyas and Salt, both have an affinity to pace over spin and this meant it was imperative for KKR to have Narine bat as deep into the middle overs with pacer hitters around him.
KKR batters: pace vs spin in IPL 2023-24
| Batter | Pace SR | Spin SR |
|---|---|---|
| Sunil Narine | 168.00 | 187.14 |
| Quinton de Kock | 136.79 | 135.52 |
| Rahmanullah Gurbaz | 124.37 | 160.71 |
| Ajinkya Rahane | 169.41 | 122.34 |
| Venkatesh Iyer | 168.57 | 124.61 |
| Rinku Singh | 172.07 | 112.72 |
| Andre Russell | 178.80 | 130.43 |
| Ramandeep Singh | 231.70 | 142.85 |
| Moeen Ali | 150.00 | 115.38 |
| Rovman Powell | 171.42 | 92.85 |
| Manish Pandey | 109.33 | 117.64 |
| Angkrish Raghuvanshi | 164.78 | 135.29 |
Narine averaged 8.33 and 10.41 in 12 months either side of his MVP performance in IPL 2024 and was on five off 11 balls, which included a streaky top-edged boundary. When Krunal Pandya was introduced
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