Kolkata Knight Riders bowling coach Bharat Arun has given insights of the franchise’s planning for the IPL 2022 player auction taking place in Bengaluru on February 12 and 13. (More Cricket News)
A total of 1214 players had listed themselves for the auction this year after which the IPL committee received the interests of all the ten franchises and trimmed the list to 590 players who will be going under the hammer.
There is still no confirmation about where the IPL 2022 would be played and hence Arun feels that the need of the hour is to pick players who can perform well in all conditions, instead of being restricted to friendly conditions.
Advertisement
“You need to pick players who can adapt to different conditions. Even before the pandemic, when you picked bowlers for home conditions, you still needed them to play 7 away games in the IPL,” said the former India bowling coach in a live on KKR’s social media channels.
KKR have so far invested mainly in the all-rounders by retaining the likes of Andre Russell (12 crore), Venkatesh Iyer (8 crore) and Sunil Narine (6 crore). Meanwhile, Varun Chakravarthy (8 crore) is their fourth pick ahead of IPL 2022 auction.
When questioned if he thinks the upcoming auction will see bowlers faring well as there are lots of quality bowlers who will go under the hammer, Arun said: “Yes, I think so. I sincerely think so, because even though a lot of people think cricket is inclined towards the batsman, I would look at it differently. I would say that therein lies an opportunity for me as a bowler to excel.
Advertisement
"Yes, there are limitations for bowlers. But again, they know that if they execute and if they can build a little more guile around their bowling, they have a chance to be a hero.”
Meanwhile, Arun also hinted that KKR would focus on their bench strength as well, something which according to him the side has excelled in so far.
“I think it is extremely important to build your bench strength and that is one aspect when KKR has excelled. Especially in this pandemic situation, where bubble life is tough, you need back ups for any unforeseen situations. Because of the uncertainities, we need a bigger squad nowadays,” he concluded.
