On 19th of December 2023, the cricketing world witnessed the moment of history being made during the grand mini IPL 2024 auction held at the Coca Cola Arena in Dubai. Like records being shattered by batters on the cricket field by scoring runs or by bowlers taking wickets, here at the arena 10 franchises locked horns with their respective available purses and strategies only to create new records in the cricketing league history. IPL 2024 promised to be a thriller if we go through to the auction.
Mitchell Starc broke the internet when he was bought for a whopping 24.75 crores by Kolkata Knight Riders .Kolkata going forward also bought in the services of Mujeeb Ur Rehman for mere 2.0 crores thus building their bowling crux around the spin likes of Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma and Mujeeb Ur Rehman.
Mentored by Gautam Gambhir who returned to the franchise after guiding it to their 2 IPL titles in 2012 and 2014 as a player , the Kolkata Knight riders set its batting core amongst the Indian likes of captain Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana , Rinku Singh, Venkatesh Iyer and Manish Pandey an ex KKR player whom they bought later in the Auction. To bolster these they have in the likes of Jason Roy, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Andre Russell in their ranks with an addition of Sherfane Rutherford .
With the auction completed and catching eyeballs of the world and former cricketers and experts going on to analyze the teams being selected by the franchises in the auction and their respective chances in the upcoming IPL season 2024,the squad set up made by Kolkata Knight Riders(KKR) seems to have irked the likes of South African swashbuckling and a veteran RCB batter AB de Villers.
The issue lies in KKR’s batting department – AB de Villiers
KKR purchased 10 players at the IPL 2024 auction, prominently bowlers. They shelled out a record amount of ₹24.75 crore for Australian left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc. They also purchased Afghan off-spinner Mujeeb Rahman for ₹2 crore. Among batters, they went for Manish Pandey and Sherfane Rutherford.
Former South African batter AB de Villiers reckons that Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) do not have a strong enough batting line-up to win the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024. He singled out Shreyas Iyer and Rinku Singh for special praise but maintained that the overall batting isn’t among the best when compared to some of the other bigger franchises in the IPL.
While analyzing KKR’s squad for IPL 2024 on his YouTube channel, De Villiers picked the lack of quality in batting as the franchise’s Achilles’ heel.
“I think their bowling attack is fantastic. The issue lies in the batting department. They don’t have bad batters, but I don’t think that’s an IPL-winning batting line-up. Shreyas Iyer is a wonderful batter. He delights me up the order there. Rinku Singh is a good finisher,” he said.
“The batting line-up doesn’t look bad, but I don’t think it’s one of the top four batting line-ups at this year’s IPL. That’s what I think KKR is lacking at this year’s IPL,” the 39-year-old opined.
Going further he also shared his views about the costliest buy in the form of Daryl Mitchell for Chennai Super Kings(CSK) who went for 14 crores INR. De Villers admitted that Daryl Mitchell was bought for a slightly higher price. He, however, added the CSK needed a player like him in the middle-order, with Ambati Rayudu having retired.
“CSK is the street smart team of the IPL and they have been that forever. I think Daryl Mitchell was very much needed and Rachin Ravindra in that middle order. Both New Zealanders have had very good World Cups, scoring hundreds. Shardul Thakur, he is a fantastic cricket player in all formats. One of the biggest steals in this year’s IPL,” he added
However with now all the auction done and the teams set for the IPL season it would be interesting to see which team comes on the top to win IPL 2024.