'Duao me yaad rakhna KKR ko': Fans split over Nitish Rana being made captain of two-time IPL champions

Nitish Rana will be leading the Kolkata Knight Riders in the absence of Shreyas Iyer in the 2023 season of the IPL.

Published on: Mar 28, 2023, 13:26:08 IST

By HT Sports Desk

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The Kolkata Knight Riders have zeroed in on batter Nitish Rana as their captain for the 2023 Indian Premier League (IPL) season in the absence of regular skipper Shreyas Iyer. Iyer will miss the season as he recovers from a back injury which has now put question marks over whether he will be able to recover in time for the World Cup later this year.

Rana has led his state team Delhi in 12 T20s at the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, winning eight and has scored 1744 runs from 74 matches at a strike rate of 135.61 for KKR. The 29-year-old is an experienced campaigner and is known for being a fairly consistent performer in the IPL and yet, KKR fans seem to be split with this call.

Here are the responses to the announcement on Twitter:

KKR said that they are hopeful that Iyer recovers at some stage of the tournament, thus avoiding ruling the regular skipper out completely. "Kolkata Knight Riders today announced that Nitish Rana would captain the side in the absence of Shreyas lyer, who is recovering from a back injury. While we are hopeful that Shreyas will recover and participate at some stage in the IPL 2023 edition, we feel fortunate that Nitish, with the captaincy experience having led his state side in white ball cricket and the IPL experience he has had with KK since 2018, will do a great job," KKR said in an official statement.

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Multiple reports had earlier claimed that KKR were contemplating promoting either Sunil Narine or Shardul Thakur as their captain as a stop-gap arrangement for Iyer. And while these were believed to be true, given the fact that Narine's association with the franchise dates back to over 2012, there were apprehensions around Shardul. It was also stated that KKR will be hosting a grand event to unveil their captain, but as it turns out, neither was true. KKR put out a post on their Twitter handle and a video on Rana to make the announcement.

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