IPL 2025 mega auction: KKR reveal why they dished out 23.75 crores to rope in Venkatesh Iyer

Venkatesh Iyer was the third most expensive player on day 1 of the IPL 2025 mega auction.

Venkatesh Iyer got a huge payday in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction day 1, as he was bought back by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for a whopping INR 23.75 crores. Iyer was not retained by KKR ahead of the mega auction.

Day one of the IPL 2025 mega auction, which was held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, saw the KKR franchise splurge a lot on Venkatesh.

Along with the retentions of Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Harshit Rana, and Ramandeep Singh, the purchases of Quinton de Kock, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, and Anrich Nortje, they have a strong unit once again.

Why KKR spent INR 23.75 crores on Venkatesh Iyer?

KKR CEO Venky Mysore spoke about why they splurged so much money on buying back Venkatesh in the mega auction. He said that they wanted to retain the core of their last season’s title-winning side.

“For us, it was about trying to keep our core. We’ve kept six players and brought 2-3 players back from last year. that was always the kind of thinking and as far as he (Venkatesh) is concerned we definitely didn’t want to find ourselves in a situation where we may not be able to bring him back.

“But it always balances itself. When you look at Quinton de Kock (INR 3.60 crore) and Nortje (INR 6.50 crore) that we’ve picked, it balances off in many ways. On an overall basis, it all works out,” Mysore said, as per ESPNcricinfo.

Mysore revealed that Venkatesh Iyer communicated with them before the auction, stating that he would be disappointed if KKR did not go all out for him in the auction.

“They’ve proven on the field what they can do. You saw in a championship year, and one year we went to the final as well, in 2021. He (Venkatesh) was highly instrumental and a terrific guy in the team. He had clearly given us an ultimatum that ‘If you don’t pick me, I will be very sad’. So we didn’t want him to be sad, and we’re also very happy,” said Mysore.

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