With only 48 hours left for all 10 Indian Premier League (IPL) teams to announce their list of retained players ahead of the 2025 IPL Mega Auction, all eyes will be on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) as the defending champions face a serious headache with an incredible roaster of players in their ranks.
Such is the quality that KKR possesses that skipper Shreyas Iyer's future has come under doubt. While mostly an IPL-winning captain is seen as a natural first-choice retention, there have been suggestions in the last few days that the 29-year-old will not feature in the Kolkata-based franchises retention list.
However, there might still be hope for Shreyas to stay at KKR. A report by the Times of India has revealed that the franchise and the player had conversations over the weekend while there were no talks between the two parties till last Friday.
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The report further revealed that multiple franchises have approached Shreyas and offered a leadership role. It is repoted that the 2024 IPL-winning captain is part of KKR's plans but not as a top retention.
For those unversed, a team can retain any capped player for either Rs. 18 crore (Slot 1 and 4), Rs. 14 crore (Slot 2 and 5), and Rs. 11 crore (3).
KKR are likely to retain Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Rinku Singh, and Harshit Rana, while they could use the Right to Match (RTM) card on Varun Chakravarthy and either of Venkatesh Iyer and Nitish Rana.
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Should KKR Retain Shreyas Iyer?
While Shreyas's batting in the T20 format does not much to show for with a lacklustre 2024 season in which he showed 351 runs at an average of 39 and strike-rate of 146.86. Overall, Shreyas has played 115 IPL matches in his career, scored 3127 runs at an average of 32.24 with a strike-rate of 127.48.
However, proven captains are known to go for a premium in IPL auctions and few come with the stature of Shreyas. Not only did he lead KKR to the title this season but he also captained Delhi Capitals (DC) to their only IPL final in history in 2020. Shreyas is the only captain in IPL history to lead two different teams to a final in IPL history .
It is likely that Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), Punjab Kings (PBKS) will come into the auction searching for a new captain. If Shreyas is not retained, KKR could also be in the same boat.