Aaron Finch, an Australian opener, will join the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for the IPL 2022 season, replacing England opener Alex Hales, who backed out due to bubble fatigue.
After Jason Roy took an extended vacation for the same reason, Hales is the second English player to do so. Finch will take over for Hales. In his previous tenure, he was a member of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
The World Cup-winning skipper from Australia will cost INR 1.50 crores. He was not sold in the Bengaluru mega auction, which took place on February 12 and 13.
Aaron Finch’s 9th IPL team is as follows:
In addition, this will be Finch’s ninth franchise in the IPL, making him the player with the most franchise appearances. He has previously played for the Rajasthan Royals (2010), Delhi Daredevils (2011,12), Pune Warriors India (2013), SunRisers Hyderabad (2014), Mumbai Indians (2015), Gujarat Lions (2016,2017), Kings XI Punjab (2018), Royal Challengers Bangalore (2020), and presently Kolkata Knight Riders (2022).
He had already said that he will no longer play first-class cricket. Finch doesn’t see himself playing Test cricket anytime soon, therefore he’d rather make room for young players seeking to create a name for themselves in the red-ball game.
KKR spent a lot of money on Indian batter Shreyas Iyer, with the intention of making him the team’s leader and anchor. They also managed to repurchase Pat Cummins, the Australian Test skipper, for INR 7.25 crores.
They have kept four players, including Andre Russell (INR 16 crore), Varun Chakravarthy (INR 12 crore), Venkatesh Iyer (INR 8 crore), and Sunil Narine (INR 8 crore) (INR 6 cr). They were able to fill all 25 of their spots and had INR 55 lakhs left over at the conclusion of the auction.
IPL 2022 team for Kolkata Knight Riders:
Ajinkya Rahane, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Sam Billings, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakravarthy, Sheldon Jackson, Anukul Roy, Rasikh Dar, Baba Indrajith, Chamika Karunaratne, Abhijeet Tomar, Pratham Singh, Ashok Sharma