The 19th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is to start from March 28. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) is busy searching for fast bowlers till 3 days before the start of the season. Mustafizur Rahman was released by KKR after he was not allowed to play in IPL. After this, its three main fast bowlers Harshit Rana, Mathisha Pathirana and Akash Deep got injured. Harshit and Akash Deep are out for the entire season, while Pathirana will miss the first few matches.
KKR included Zimbabwean fast bowler Blessing Muzarabani in its team as a replacement for Mustafizur. Then he signed Saurabh Dubey in place of Akash Deep. Now KKR has found Harshit’s replacement. Three-time IPL champion KKR has included Navdeep Saini in his place in the team. Navdeep, who has played in all three formats for the Indian team, remained unsold in the IPL 2026 auction. KKR has joined him for Rs 75 lakh.
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Hard work paid off – Navdeep
After entering the KKR team, Navdeep said, ‘I came to know about this only last night and to be honest, at that time I did not understand how to react, but somewhere inside I always felt that the hard work I am doing will definitely yield results. I knew that one day this would definitely happen but the most important thing is to have faith in God. I did the same and when I got this opportunity, it was a great feeling. This is a new beginning for me because I have seen many ups and downs in the last two-three years.
How is Navdeep’s IPL record?
33-year-old Navdeep Saini made his debut playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the 2019 season and took 11 wickets in 13 matches. After playing for RCB till 2021, he joined Rajasthan Royals in 2022. Here he got a chance to play only 4 matches in two seasons, in which he took 6 wickets. Navdeep was last seen playing in IPL in 2023. He has played a total of 32 IPL matches, in which he has taken 23 wickets. During this period his economy has been 8.88.
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KKR full squad: Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Finn Allen, Tim Seifert, Tejasvi Dahiya, Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sarthak Ranjan, Ramandeep Singh, Rinku Singh, Rahul Tripathi, Daksh Kamra, Cameron Green, Sunil Narine, Rachin Ravindra, Anukul Roy, Akash Deep, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi, Mathisha. Pathirana, Prashant Solanki, Umran Malik, Varun Chakraborty, Blessing Muzarabani, Saurabh Dubey, Navdeep Saini
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