Former India cricketer Mohammed Kaif has said that if Shreyas Iyer can manage so many players and win the Kolkata Knight Riders the IPL title, he deserves to the franchise's first retention ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction. Although Iyer hasn't been in great touch with the bat over the last few months, Kaif still backed him to lead KKR for another year.
Kolkata won the IPL title for the third time under Iyer's captaincy earlier this year. But questions have been raised over his place in that lineup, especially after his stakes fell considerably across formats in international and domestic cricket.
According to BCCI's modified rules for the IPL 2025 mega auction, a franchise can retain a maximum of six players either directly or through the Right to Match option.
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“When a team wins and becomes a champion, then you want the main players to continue playing for the team. So they would want to retain the maximum number of players, use RTM on a few and also buy fewer players in the auction," Kaif said while speaking on Star Sports.
"Talking about Iyer's batting, he may not play that well. But about his role as a captain, to lead the team to the title is a big thing. I think he has improved as a captain, he is getting better. If he can manage so many players and win you the trophy, then he deserves to be the first," Kaif added.
The discussion around Iyer's retention or release has gained a lot of air because of the franchise's history with Eoin Morgan. The former England captain had led Kolkata to the finals of IPL 2021 but was released after that season. The franchise finished fifth in both IPL 2022 and 2023.
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Kolkata have a long wishlist of retentions, with Sunil Narine, Phil Salt, Venkatesh Iyer, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russell and Harshit Rana playing crucial roles in them winning the title.