Brendon McCullum, Gujarat Lions, IPL, KKR, Match 3
Brendon McCullum.IANS

Kolkata Knight Riders have appointed former New Zealand cricketer Brendon McCullum as the head coach for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) season. The 37-year-old former hard hitter has played for KKR for some time and expressed his happiness on getting the job.

He mentioned that it is a great honour for him to take the responsibility as the Knight Rider franchise has become iconic and he will look forward to building on the success of KKR.

"It is a great honour to take on this responsibility. The Knight Rider franchise in IPL and CPL have become iconic and have set the standard for franchise cricket. We have fantastic squads in both KKR and TKR and I, along with the support staff, will be looking to build on the success both franchises have enjoyed," the former cricketer said in his statement.

KKR CEO Venky Mysore mentioned that Brendon has been an integral part of the Knight Rider family and he has the qualities to bring out the best of the team.

"Brendon has been an integral part of the Knight Riders family for a long time.His leadership qualities, honesty, positive and aggressive style, combined with his natural ability to bring the best out of the teams he has been part of makes him ideally suited to lead KKR and TKR as a head coach," Mysore explained. 

Sunil Narine, KKR, Kolkata Knight Riders, AB De Villiers
IANS

McCullum had a brilliant IPL career scoring 2,880 runs in the 109 matches he played with two centuries. He started the inaugral season of the IPL in a magnificent manner by hitting 158 runs for KKR against Royal Challengers Bangalore. The former wicket-keeper batsman was a part of KKR from 2008-10 and again during the 2012-13 season.

He was also a part of the Trinidad Knight Riders between 2016-18 in the CPL and has also played for Kochi Tuskers, Chennai Super Kings, Gujarat Lions and RCB in the IPL. The cricketer announced his retirement from all forms of competitive cricket just two weeks ago. He also went unsold at the IPL auction in 2018. The 37-year-old cricketer will take over the job from South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis.

KKR finished fifth on the IPL league table in 2019 with six wins and eight losses.