Venkatesh Iyer, a vital player for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) over the past four seasons, opened up about his feelings after not being retained by the franchise. (More Cricket News)
Venkatesh admitted to feeling teary-eyed but remains hopeful for the possibility of returning to the team in the mega auction.
Indian Cricket fans were stunned when KKR revealed their retention list on October 31. The franchise made significant moves, notably excluding IPL 2024 title-winning captain Shreyas Iyer, Venkatesh, Mitchell Starc and Nitish Rana from the roster.
The IPL retentions for the 2025 mega auction took place on Thursday. One of the challenges of holding a mega auction immediately after winning the Indian Premier League (IPL) title is that teams often have to let go of several key players from their victorious squad.
This is the predicament currently facing the IPL 2024 champions, KKR.
In an interview with Revsportz, Venkatesh commended KKR's retention list and offered insights into the reasoning behind the decisions.
He said, "KKR has had a very good retention. I think they have covered easily 14-16 overs and with the bat, they have almost covered five positions. So, they had a great retention but I would have loved to be on that list. KKR have given me a big breakthrough and I have given everything for KKR and beyond cricket, there’s something called emotion."
"In the case of KKR, it's a complete family. It's not just the 16, 20 or 25 players, but also the management, the staff, the guys behind the scenes. There is so much emotion behind that that it kind of makes me a little teary-eyed that my name is not on the retention list," Venkatesh shared during the interview.
In IPL 2024, Venkatesh scored 370 runs in 15 matches. He made his IPL debut after being bought by KKR in the 2021 auction and quickly became a key player, amassing 370 runs with an average of 41 and a strike rate of 129, helping the team finish as runners-up that season.
On April 16, 2023, Venkatesh achieved his maiden IPL century against the Mumbai Indians, scoring 104 runs off 51 balls. With this feat, he became only the second KKR player to reach the milestone, following in the footsteps of Brendon McCullum.
