Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) strongest playing XI for IPL 2025

KKR won their third IPL title in IPL 2024.

The defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have tried to retain and get back as many players from their title-winning squad of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 as possible.

While they retained six key players – Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, Harshit Rana, Ramandeep Singh – they parted ways with the skipper who led them to their third IPL title – Shreyas Iyer.

Having failed to retain Venkatesh Iyer, KKR went hard for the all-rounder at the IPL 2025 mega auction and bought him back for a whopping INR 23.75 crores.

Vaibhav Arora, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manish Pandey, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, and Anukul Roy are other players who have returned to the franchise after being released.

KKR have roped in some gun overseas T20 match-winners: Quinton de Kock, Anrich Nortje, Moeen Ali, Rovman Powell, and Spencer Johnson. With Suyash Sharma released, they bought leg-spinner Mayank Markande.

The Knight Riders decided to invest money, time and resources in Umran Malik as they see a lot of potential in the tearaway fast bowler who has lost his radar over the last couple of years. With bowling coach Bharat Arun and new mentor Dwayne Bravo, Malik is in good hands to rediscover the lost spice in his bowling.

Ajinkya Rahane, who was with KKR in IPL 2022, finds his way back to the franchise.

KKR have not yet announced their captain for IPL 2025. Venkatesh Iyer, in whom they invested heavily, seems to be the front-runner to be the new skipper.

KKR best XI for IPL 2025:

Sunil Narine, Quinton de Kock (wk), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Anrich Nortje, Varun Chakaravarthy (Impact player: Umran Malik)

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