With just one game remaining as part of their IPL 2025 campaign, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have signed a replacement player for Rovman Powell, who was one of the two overseas stars not to return for the tournament resumption. KKR have brought in Madhya Pradesh's mystery spinner Shivam Shukla, who was with the Sunrisers Hyderabad as a net bowler. Shukla was the leading wicket-taker in the MP T20 League, playing for the Rewa Jaguars.
Shukla may be short in stature, however, the Saeed Ajmal-like action helps him deceive the batter with his variations with a doosra, off-spinner and a top-spinner. Since the game in Bengaluru was washed out on Saturday due to incessant rain, KKR have just one match left in the season, against the Sunrisers Hyderabad in Delhi next week.
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Since KKR are already eliminated, the defending champions might hand Shukla a debut with the objective of hopefully, signing him in the future if he does well even though the Men in Purple already have a solid spin combo of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy at their disposal.
Powell and Moeen Ali didn't return for the last leg of IPL 2025. The former West Indies T20 captain was nursing an unspecified injury and, with KKR ruled out of the tournament with just two matches left, Powell decided against returning. It hasn't been a great campaign for the defending champions as they didn't find any consistency with the bat, despite having so many options.
The KKR line-up with Sunil Narine at the top and Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi to follow in the middle order, always felt overstaffed and unpowered as the likes of Rinku Singh and Andre Russell used to get very few balls to display their talent. The win-loss, win-loss string didn't help as they couldn't get the consistency they required and eventually fell flat.
KKR were without their captain, spearhead in Mitchell Starc, missed an opener like Phil Salt and most importantly, the mentor Gautam Gambhir from their championship-winning season.
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