The Kolkata Knight Riders have announced their retention list ahead of the IPL 2022 season. The IPL retention took place on November 30 and the coverage was live on the Star Sports network. The side decided to retain their West Indies superstars Andre Russell and Sunil Narine along with Indian players Varun Chakravarthy and Venkatesh Iyer. Both Iyer and Varun played a key role in KKR making the finals of IPL 2021. 

In the process, they have released some big names like captain Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik and Pat Cummins, three big international players and also Shubman Gill. Gill was seen as a potential captaincy candidate for KKR but as things turned out, the franchise has released him ahead of the mega auction. 

There are also reports that the IPL 2022 auction will be the last mega auction. The BCCI announced the same after having a detailed discussion with the franchise owners who want to build a team in the future and invest in their players as well. 

In 58 games since 2018 for KKR, Shubman Gill scored 1417 runs with 10 fifty-plus scores. In 2020 and 2021, he went past 400 runs for the franchise on successive occasions. 

According to the rules laid by the BCCI, each existing team was allowed to retain up to four players. The four players could include, two Indians and two overseas, or three Indians and one overseas. The teams were allowed to retain two uncapped players. Each team was allocated a salary purse of 90 crores, however, after retaining four players KKR have a remaining salary purse of 48 crores. The mega-auctions are likely to be held in January next year. 

Kolkata Knight Riders-Retained Players

 

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Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer

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