Kolkata Knight Riders, IPL 2014 champions, will be one of the busiest teams in the upcoming auction in Bengaluru on Monday. KKR released nine players ahead of IPL 2017 auction and they need to sign some quality players to strengthen their squad. Out of the nine players released, six of them were foreigners.
Complete list for IPL 2017 auction
Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shalkib Al Hasan and Chris Lynn were the retained foreign stars, but the list soon reduced to three overseas players as Russell was handed a one year ban for violating his whereabouts clause.
This came as a huge blow to KKR, who relied heavily on Russell's all-round skills in previous seasons. Had he been banned before the deadline day for teams to release their players, KKR would have let go of the all-rounder or kept at least Colin Munro or Jason Holder to fill the all-rounder slot.
Players, who can deliver big blows with bat and take wickets, are always in high demand. And with dearth of quality all-rounders, they always come at a premium price.
Corey Anderson (New Zealand), Thisara Perera (Sri Lanka), Chris Woakes and Ben Stokes (England) will be on KKR's radar.
Looking at the options in hand, Kolkata Knight Riders should definitely go all out for Stokes, one of the finest all-rounders in world cricket today. However, in doing so, they will have to shell out huge money as his base price stands at Rs 2 crore.
KKR might face some stiff competition from teams like Rising Pune Supergiants and Gujarat Lions, who have already showed interest in Stokes. Royal Challangers Bangalore are also said to be in the fray. Stokes is the only like-for-like replacement for Russell amongst the current crop of players available for the IPL auction.
It makes complete sense for KKR to go all out for Stokes, who can deliver with both bat and ball. However, his T20 record of 192 runs and 10 wickets in 21 matches is a cause of concern.
Stokes proved in England's recent tour of India that he has it in him to bowl in the sub-continent and score runs, which should be good enough reasons for them to sign him. Stokes may leak runs, but he has an uncanny knack to pick wickets when the team needs it the most. And when it comes to batting, the middle-order batsman is capable of finishing off matches with his powerful hitting.
KKR should go all out and buy Stokes, who has it in him to power the team to another IPL title in May 2017.
