All the time wish to be chief…

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) star Venkatesh Iyer has thrown his hat in the ring to be the franchise’s captain for IPL 2025. The swashbuckling all-rounder was bought back by KKR for a whooping Rs 23.75 cr in IPL 2025 mega auction. While KKR is looking for a new captain having released Shreyas Iyer, Venkatesh has now put up his hand to take up the responsibility.

Venkatesh Iyer wants to be KKR captain in IPL 2025

In an interview with The Indian Express, Venkatesh Iyer revealed that he had always maintained that he wanted to be a leader, be it an domestic team or an IPL franchise. He clarified that he intended to contribute as a leader and added that he would happily take the captaincy offer if it came his way. Venkatesh did not reveal anything about KKR’s choices for captain in IPL 2025 and instead simply said that he would wait and watch.

“I’ve always maintained that I want to be a leader in any set-up that I walk into, be it Madhya Pradesh, an IPL team, or even the Indian team. Being a leader, you want to contribute with your ideas, with your suggestions. You don’t really need the captaincy tag for that. So I always want to be a leader in the dressing room. And if captaincy comes my way, it will be an honour to lead such a reputed franchise. Let’s see what’s in store for me,” Venkatesh Iyer said.

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Venkatesh Iyer was surprisingly released by KKR before the IPL 2025 auction as the side opted to retain Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana and Varun Chakravarthy. However, the team bid heavily for Iyer in the auction, entering a bidding war with RCB and eventually managing to secure the services of the southpaw. Venkatesh Iyer admitted that he intended to return to KKR at any cost and had even conveyed the same to KKR CEO Venky Mysore.

“To be honest, I wanted to play for KKR. If it were in my hands, I would have loved to be retained. But that didn’t happen. I’m really happy that I’m back at KKR,” Iyer said.

KKR’s captaincy options for IPL 2025

While Venkatesh Iyer is an obvious choice to lead KKR in IPL 2025, the team has other options as well in the form of Rinku Singh or Sunil Narine. Further, reports had earlier claimed that Ajinkya Rahane – who was bought for his base price of Rs 1.50 cr – was ‘90% confirmed’ to be the next captain and was purchased simply because he was a viable option for captaincy.