Twice on Tuesday was the record for the most expensive player in Indian Premier League (IPL) history set in a space of less than an hour. It was Australia's ODI World Cup-winning captain Pat Cummins at first, when Sunrisers Hyderabad splurged 20.5 crore, before Kolkata Knight Riders broke the bank to shell out a whopping 24.75 crore to get back fellow Aussie Mitchell Starc. The left-arm fast bowler was among the 11 players who roped in by KKR.
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Come 2024, Starc will be making his first ever IPL appearance since 2015, with the eye to prepare for the T20 World Cup in June in West Indies and the USA. This was also the second time that KKR acquired Starc, having signed him back in 2018 for INR 9.8 crore before he missed the season owing to a leg injury.
Speaking to JioCinema, Starc said, "It was a shock, if you call it. But my wife Alyssa is actually over in India with the Australian women's team. I think their coverage was slightly ahead of mine in Australia. So I was getting updates before I could see it on the screen. It was pretty surprising actually and I am thrilled to be back at the IPL in the coming season. Really excited to be joining KKR."
“Yeah, it is really exciting as you said. The guys, as you mentioned, I played cricket against them and now I will get to play alongside them. Like Shreyas, the chance to see how he goes about his cricket firsthand rather than just playing against him and obviously the big hitters like Andre and Jason as well. really excited to be part of it and I hope I can really add value,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}“Yeah, it is really exciting as you said. The guys, as you mentioned, I played cricket against them and now I will get to play alongside them. Like Shreyas, the chance to see how he goes about his cricket firsthand rather than just playing against him and obviously the big hitters like Andre and Jason as well. really excited to be part of it and I hope I can really add value,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}For their other overseas players, KKR purchased Sherfane Rutherford ( ₹1.5 crore), Gus Atkinson ( ₹1 crore), Mujeeb Rahman ( ₹2 crore).
Meanwhile, they also roped in Indian players in Chetan Sakariya ( ₹50 lakh), Manish Pandey ( ₹50 lakh), Sakib Hussain ( ₹20 lakh), Angkrish Raghuvanshi ( ₹20 lakh), Ramandeep Singh ( ₹20 lakh), KS Bharat ( ₹50 lakh).
Full list of players acquired by KKR:
KS Bharat: ₹50 lakhs.
Chetan Sakariya: ₹50 lakhs.
Mitchell Starc: ₹24.75 crore
Sherfane Rutherford: ₹1.5 crore
Manish Pandey: ₹50 lakh
Gus Atkinson: ₹1 crore
Sakib Hussain: ₹20 lakh
Mujeeb Rahman: ₹2 crore
Angkrish Raghuvanshi: ₹20 lakh
Ramandeep Hussain: ₹20 lakh
Sakib Hussain: ₹20 lakh
Retained: Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana (c, 2023), Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Sunil Narine, Jason Roy. Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy