The former South African cricketer AB de Villiers feels that Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) lack a strong batting line-up to lift the trophy in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.
The former African gave some words of praise for KKR captain Shreyas Iyer and Rinku Singh but AB de Villiers emphasized that the overall batting strength of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) doesn’t rank among the best, especially when compared to some of the more prominent franchises in the IPL.
In the IPL 2024 auction, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) made significant acquisitions, particularly focusing on bolstering their bowling lineup. They set a record by spending ₹24.75 crore to secure the services of Australian left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc. They added Afghan off-spinner Mujeeb Rahman to their squad for ₹2 crore. In the batting department, their purchases included Manish Pandey and Sherfane Rutherford.
While analyzing the KKR batting lineup after the auction, AB de Villiers said, “I think their bowling attack is fantastic. The issue lies in the batting department. They don’t have bad batters, but I don’t think that’s an IPL-winning batting line-up. Shreyas Iyer is a wonderful batter. He delights me up the order there. Rinku Singh is a good finisher.”
“The batting line-up doesn’t look bad, but I don’t think it’s one of the top four batting line-ups at this year’s IPL. That’s what I think KKR is lacking at this year’s IPL,” the former RCB star opined.
KKR FULL SQUAD 2024
Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Shreyas Iyer (c), Jason Roy, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Gus Atkinson, Sakib Hussain.
