Follow UsShreyas Iyer might have been the skipper of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) when they won the trophy last year, but he wasn’t retained by the franchise ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction. He was eventually sold to Punjab Kings for a massive sum of 26.75 Crore and he is leading them right now.
Ahead of the April 26 (Saturday) clash against KKR in Kolkata, former Indian skipper and World Cup winner Sunil Gavaskar felt that Iyer’s wounds won’t be healed and he’ll have a point to prove against his old IPL team.
“He [Iyer] will be fired up,” Gavaskar told the broadcasters, as quoted by India Today.
“And if he had been, you know, I've been out of form, if they had not done well, then one could understand. But the captain of a winning team not being retained will hurt. No question about it, that will hurt.
“Now he went for much, much more to PBKS [in the auction], which is fine. That would have given him a little bit of consolation, but nobody wants to be left out, and that is the thing. So clearly, I think he will have a point to prove. Or maybe half a dozen points to prove," he added.
Notably, earlier in the season, PBKS defended an extremely low score against KKR at their home ground where the visiting side succumbed while chasing 112.
Meanwhile, the 2015 ODI World Cup winning former Australian skipper Michael Clark felt that KKR will leave their first encounter against PBKS this season behind, and would love to get on a roll like Mumbai Indians have.
"I think that game [against PBKS] will be left in the memory for KKR and they won't want to talk about it ever again, but I think it's gonna be a beauty,” Clark told the broadcasters.
“Let's see what sort of pitch we get. I think both teams really need to win. KKR is underperforming with their team.I think KKR's one of those teams like Mumbai. If they get a roll on, they're so destructive," he added.