Kolkata Knight Riders Shubhman Gill, KL Rahul Lucknow, all 10 teams select captain for IPL 2022

All the eight existing IPL teams picked their top players who will remain with the side for a few more years and released the rest of the squad. The IPL 2022 Mega Auction is just a few months from now and the franchises have already begun preparations for that. Kolkata Knight Riders Choose Shubhman Gill, KL Rahul for Lucknow and all 10 team select captain for IPL 2022.

The two new teams have been added to the existing pool of eight franchises and the mega auction IPL 2022 is now inevitable. There will be a lot of shuffling of the players and some emotional moments as well for the players who have been associated with certain franchises for a long time in the past and are now released into the auction.

Rajasthan Royals (RR): Sanju Samson

The inaugural champions of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Rajasthan Royals are keen to give another go to young Sanju Samson as the leader of the side. He has been retained by the franchise for whopping INR 14 Crores.

Samson was appointed Rajasthan’s captain during IPL 2021 following Steve Smith’s failure. Though it was not a memorable campaign for the Sanju-led Rajasthan Royals, surely, he will have his learning. He will be eager to apply his learnings in the coming season and fetch results for his team. It will be interesting to see Samson kind of leadership in the coming season.

Chennai Super Kings (CSK): MS Dhoni

The four-times IPL winning IPL franchise, Chennai Super Kings has retained the likes of Mahendra Singh Dhoni for the coming season of the IPL for a whopping INR 12 Crores and is expected to lead his team once again.

Dhoni had already indicated his plans for the coming season where he said that he wants to play his last match at Chennai’s Chepauk. Some of the experts believe that MS Dhoni is going to play the entire IPL 2022 season. He will lead the side once again after winning the IPL 2021 in Dubai.

Delhi Capitals (DC): Rishabh Pant

The young stumper batsman Rishabh Pant has been named as the leader of Delhi Capitals (DC) once again after his success in the last season. He replaced Shreyas Iyer in the team, who is apparently not retained by the franchise.

Pant was appointed leader of the side when Iyer was injured and he did enormously well in the Captaincy. He took his team to the playoffs and was apt with his resource usage.

Mumbai Indians (MI): Rohit Sharma

The most successful IPL captain, Rohit Sharma has been retained by his parent franchise and will hold his leadership roles for the coming season as well. Under Rohit, Mumbai Indians won five IPL titles in eight years and did exceedingly well.

Rohit Sharma’s captaincy record is second to none in the IPL and he has started posing himself as a strong white ball candidate for India’s captaincy after Virat Kohli.

After taking the leadership role from Ricky Ponting in 2013, Mumbai Indians were a little worried about the role and had to give it to Rohit Sharma as he was the only performing player in the team. That move to appoint Rohit, the leader of the side, paid dividends to the franchise.

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH): Kane Williamson

The New Zealand captain Kane Williamson is going to be SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) skipper for the fifteenth season of the Indian Premier League. He has been retained by the franchise for a whopping INR 14 Crores during the recent IPL 2022 Player Retentions.

The franchise earlier sacked David Warner from his captaincy and appointed Kane Williamson as the leader of the group. Warner was not given enough reasons for his removal and thus the franchise was amidst the public rage over their behaviour toward David Warner.

Williamson recently took his national side to ICC T20 World Cup 2021 final despite not having mighty players in the squad unlike India, Australia and England. New Zealand took everyone for a surprise after they reached the final and asserted that a team needs to play like a team in order to proceed forward in any tournament.

Also Read: Lucknow list out Kl Rahul, Rashid Khan, Steve Smith and Suresh Raina for IPL 2022

Punjab Kings (PBKS): Mayank Agarwal

The Mohali based IPL franchise is struggling to get going in the Indian Premier League. Right from the player selection to their strategies, the franchise has grappled a lot and is keen to make amends to it from the coming season.

Mayank Agarwal is the probable candidate to lead the side in the coming auction. KL Rahul has already parted ways with the franchise and wants to explore opportunities. Agarwal has been retained by the franchise for INR 12 Crores. He will serve the franchise for a few more years to come and is a good candidate for the captaincy role.

Also Read: RCB choose Manish Pandey as captain for IPL 2022

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR): Shubhman Gill

The two times IPL winner, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) doesn’t have a captaincy material cricketer right now. The franchise has retained the likes of Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer and Sunil Narine during the recent player retention and none of them seems to be the right player to be given the highest order roles and responsibilities.

Kolkata Knight Riders will try to get Shubhman Gill as captain he is a young and upcoming Indian professional cricketer who presently represents India in Test and ODI cricket. He was also included in the Indian Test team for the tour of Australia and did well there. In the Indian Premier League, he plays for the Kolkata Night Riders. Kolkata Knight Riders drafted him in the IPL auctions held in Jan 2018 for Rs 1.8 Crore. He made his debut against Sunrisers Hyderabad on 14 April 2018.

He justified the faith put in him by the Kolkata Knight Riders franchise by scoring at an average of 33 with a strike rate of 146 in that year’s IPL, with his highest being 56 not out. In IPL 2019 and IPL 2020, his strike rate was a notch lower at around 120 but he continued with the steady average of 32-33 with his highest being 76 and 70 in the two seasons respectively. He was awarded the “Emerging Player Award” during the IPL 19.

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB): Manish Pandey

The biggest question for RCB going forward in the coming season of the IPL will be, who will be their next captain after Virat Kohli. Kohli, recently decided to step down from T20 captaincy to manage his excessive workload and since then the debate around RCB’s next skipper started.

The franchise definitely wants someone who can take forward Virat Kohli’s legacy and his efforts. It will be interesting to see, who steps into Virat’s shoe in the coming season. Team India Middle order batter and first Indian IPL century king Kannadiga Manish Pandey will lead RCB for IPL 2022. As per Report Royal Challengers Bangalore planning to bid Manish Pandey in IPL 2022 mega Auction. Karnataka player was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad in the year 2018 for an incredible 11 crores. From that point forward, he has been the foundation in SRH’s batting line-up. Tragically, he persevered through an appalling IPL 2021 and was in the long run dropped from the playing XI.

He is probably not going to be held by the Hyderabad establishment and will have returned to the bartering tables this year. Manish Pandey has broad experience as a chief in homegrown cricket. He has captained Karnataka’s homegrown group lately and has been very effective. In SMAT 2021, he drove Karnataka to the finals in spite of the shortfall of central members like Mayank Agarwal and Devdutt Padikkal.

Ahmedabad based IPL franchise: Shreyas Iyer

The two new IPL teams have been entitled to pick three players outside the IPL 2022 Player Auction. These three players will form a core for the team. The salary of the players will be finalised with negotiation and mutual understandings. The Ahmedabad based new IPL franchise is reported to take Shreyas Iyer on board as their captain.

The former Delhi Capitals (DC) captain, Shreyas Iyer always wanted to lead the side which was the prominent reason why he left DC. He took DC to its maiden IPL final in 2020 and since then the franchise has done well. Iyer is a strong leader with two years of experience under his belt. He is brilliant with his batting abilities and is a ready-made captain for any team.

Also Read: Mumbai Indians bring back Hardik Pandya and Trent Boult for IPL 2022

Lucknow based IPL franchise: KL Rahul

Former Punjab Kings (PBKS) skipper KL Rahul is expected to join Lucknow based new IPL franchise as their new captain. If the reports are to be believed, KL Rahul is in talks with Lucknow officials and the deal is likely to be done by the end of December.

KL Rahul did well during his stay at PBKS. He scored maximum runs for his side and was quite good with his captaincy as well. However, KL Rahul wanted to explore more opportunities and hence decided to part ways with the franchise.