Eoin Morgan KKR

Eoin Morgan Picture Credit: BCCI/IPL

In a big announcement on Thursday, Kolkata Knight Riders have confirmed that they will be conducting Mock Auction for the fans ahead of IPL 2022 mega auctions, set to take place on Feb 12-13 in Bengaluru. It is an activity that the franchise has been doing for the last few years, where they take suggestions from fans and actually even implement it on the D-Day by getting the players on board.

Reflecting on the same, KKR's CEO Managing Director Venky Mysore said, "Well, first of all, credit to our creative team who came up with this idea. We have done it in different forms in previous years. It's all about tapping into the passion of fans. I get a lot of DMs, messages, tweets saying what are you doing. It will be great to get everybody involved and get the collective thought-process going."

He added, "They (KKR's creative team) have come up with a very smart way in which fans can get involved with this, and share their ideas with us, and at the same time also filter it down in a way we can actually interact with those who have been identified as people who have come up with some smart and interesting ideas."

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Meanwhile, KKR's assistant coach Abhishek Nayar revealed that suggestions of people in mock auctions have actually played a crucial role in deciding the franchise's strategy in actual auctions. The 38-year-old told that the names of Pat Cummins and Tom Banton actually emerged initially during the mock auctions, signifying the importance and relevance of this activity.

KKR will head to mega auction with purse of INR 48 crores

It must be noted that Kolkata Knight Riders have already spent INR 42 crores, having retained Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine. The franchise will have quite a few spots to fill with a limited budget which will certainly be a challenge for KKR. There is a possibility that Shahrukh Khan co-owned team might also be looking for a new captain, having released Eoin Morgan after the end of last season.