Abhishek Nayar, the freshly appointed head coach of the Kolkata Knight Riders, recently talked about a previous incident that helped the team add all-rounder Venkatesh Iyer to their roster. Before being released prior to the 2026 season’s mini-auction, the Madhya Pradesh cricket player played with the team for five seasons in the Indian Premier League.
During a trial before the 2021 season, Abhishek shared a story of how Venkatesh Iyer offered to bowl the final over in a practice match, leaving a lasting effect on the assistant coach at the time. Abhishek appreciated that Venkatesh was prepared to take on more duties in a dire circumstance, even if the all-rounder was unable to defend the score.
“His attitude is actually the reason I chose him. Venkatesh Iyer arrived with a swagger on the first day; he performed, but he never gave us a sidelong glance or made an effort to win over anyone. He seemed to me to have a lot of attitude. We gave him a game on the second day. Venky yelled from the boundary, “I will bowl the last over,” when our bowler cramped in the final over. “I loved his willingness to face adversity, even though he bowled and gave up 18 runs,” Nayar said on Doordarshan’s The Great Indian Cricket Show.
“For him, demonstrating to himself that he was acting morally was more important than the trial. I never wavered from that notion,” Nayar said.
After being selected by KKR for just INR 20 lakh in 2021, Venkatesh Iyer stock rose rapidly, reaching INR 8 crore in 2022. Before the 2025 Indian Premier League, he was released into the massive auction and won an incredible INR 23.75 crore.
In 2024, the year KKR went on to win the championship, he had his best season with the team. He came out to bat in the middle order and amassed 370 runs in 13 innings with a remarkable strike rate of 158.79.
But the 2025 season concluded in a way that neither KKR nor Venkatesh Iyer wanted, which resulted in the cricketer’s release.
With the exception of Venkatesh, the three-time IPL winners also let go of Andre Russell, Quinton de Kock, Moeen Ali, Anrich Nortje, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, and Spencer Johnson. KKR has a purse of INR 64.30 crore going into the auction. Only 12 of the 2025 unit’s players were kept, giving them a maximum of 13 open spots to fill.
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