IPL 2025 mega auction: List of all players bought by KKR on day 1

KKR forked out INR 23.75 crores for Venkatesh Iyer at the IPL 2025 mega auction.

Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) made one large buy and a few other small buys at the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction.

They splurged a whopping INR 23.75 crores on Venkatesh Iyer, who was a key cog in their IPL 2024 title-winning team, but wasn’t retained. KKR, RCB and LSG were also interested in Venkatesh, but KKR remained unmoved and rebought the all-rounder.

Among some prominent overseas buys, they roped in Quinton de Kock, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Anrich Nortje for decent money. They got hold of young Angkrish Raghuvanshi as well, who was part of their team last season.

Total amount spent by KKR:

109.95 crore

Total purse available for KKR:

10.05 crore

Total slots available for KKR:

13 slots (3 overseas)

All players bought on Day 1 by KKR:

1. Venkatesh Iyer – 23.75 crore (BP – 2 crore)
2. Quinton de Kock – 3.6 crore (BP – 2 crore)
3. Rahmanullah Gurbaz – 2 crore (BP – 2 crore)
4. Anrich Nortje – 6.5 crore (BP – 2 crore)
5. Angkrish Raghuvanshi – 3 crore (BP – 30 lakh)
6. Mayank Markande – 30 lakh (BP – 30 lakh)
7. Vaibhav Arora – 1.8 crore (BP – 30 lakh)

Ahead of the auction, KKR had retained six players: Rinku Singh (INR 13 crore), Varun Chakravarthy (INR 12 crore), Sunil Narine (INR 12 crore), Andre Russell (INR 12 crore), Harshit Rana (INR 4 crore), Ramandeep Singh (INR 4 crore)

KKR CEO Venky Mysore explained Venkatesh Iyer’s purschase saying, “The auctions are this way only. At the end of the day, it is about the player you want and the type of player you want. It [the prices] surprises you all the time. When you have salary caps that keep going up, the prices will expand. For us, it was about keeping our core. We kept six players and have brought 2-3 players back from last year. That was the thinking. We definitely didn’t want to find ourselves in a situation where we would not want him back. But on an overall basis, it all balances out.”

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