After narrowly missing out on a place in the play-offs in the 2020 Indian Premier League (IPL), Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will be hoping to make amends in this year’s competition. Ahead of the tournament, they have a number of difficult decisions to make with regards to the make-up of their first choice playing XI.

In 2020, KKR finished fifth in the league phase of the tournament, ending below third and fourth placed sides Sunrisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bangalore on Net Run Rate. With the exception of England captain Eoin Morgan, it’s hard to make a case for any of their overseas stars experiencing stellar tournaments in 2020.  Varun Chakravarthy was one of the breakout players of the tournament, taking 17 wickets at 20.94 with an economy rate of under seven runs per over.

Ahead of the 2021 tournament, KKR picked up the overseas talent of Shakib Al Hasan and Ben Cutting – both of whom may make the first choice KKR playing XI, though more likely in the case of the former. KKR have a promising group of young India quicks who they’ll be hoping take their games up to the next level in 2021. One of them – Prasidh Krishna – recently made his ODI debut against England, while Shivam Mavi and Kamlesh Nagarkoti have been tipped for successful careers since they were part of India’s 2018 U19 World Cup winning side.

KKR squad for IPL 2021

Eoin Morgan, Shivam Mavi, Sandeep Warrier, Kuldeep Yadav, Shakib Al Hasan, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Lockie Ferguson, Ben Cutting, Tim Seifert, Karun Nair, Sheldon Jackson, Venkatesh Iyer, Dinesh Karthik, Harbhajan Singh, Pat Cummins, Andre Russell, Prasidh Krishna, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Pawan Negi, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Rahul Tripathi

Predicted KKR playing XI

Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Rana, Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik, Pat Cummins, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Shivam Mavi, Prasidh Krishna

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