Nitish Rana is set to captain Kolkata Knight Riders in the upcoming IPL 2023 edition. With this appointment, Rana will become the seventh player to captain the franchise in the absence of regular skipper Shreyas Iyer. Here in this article, we will have a look at how KKR has performed over the years in IPL under different skippers.
List of Players to Captain KKR in IPL:
Sourav Ganguly in 2008 & 2010
Brendon McCullum in 2009
Gautam Gambhir in 2011-2017
Dinesh Karthik in 2018-2020
Eoin Morgan in 2020-2021
Shreyas Iyer in 2022
Nitish Rana in 2023
KKR under Sourav Ganguly's Captaincy in IPL:
2008 : 6th Position (8 teams)
2010 : 6th Position (8 teams)
Under Ganguly's Captaincy KKR ended in 6th position in both the 2008 & 2010 IPL editions respectively. Ganguly as KKR skipper won 13 out of 27 games in IPL overall.
KKR under Brendon McCullum's Captaincy in IPL:
2009: 8th Position (8 teams)
Brendon McCullum Captained KKR only in 1 IPL season but unfortunately, his team ended up in the last position in the points table in that season. McCullum as Captain managed to win only 3 out of 13 games overall.
KKR under Gautam Gambhir's Captaincy in IPL:
2011: Qualified for Playoffs (Reached Eliminator)
2012: Champions
2013: 7th Position (9 teams)
2014: Champions
2015: 5th Position (8 teams)
2016: Qualified for Playoffs (Reached Eliminator)
2017: Qualified for Playoffs (Reached Qualifier-2)
Gambhir has been the most successful captain of KKR in IPL overall. As the captain, he has helped KKR win the 2012 & 2014 IPL trophies. Notably, Gambhir hasn't missed a single IPL game for KKR in his entire career overall.
Gautam Gambhir as Captain of KKR in IPL won 61 out of 108 games overall.
KKR under Dinesh Karthik's Captaincy in IPL:
2018: Qualified for Playoffs (Reached Qualifier-2)
2019: 5th Position (8 teams)
2020: Won 4 out of 7 games (Team ended at 5th position out of 8 teams)
Dinesh Karthik has led his team to the Playoffs in IPL 2018 season but unfortunately, they missed out on the final four birth in the 2019 season due to their Net Run Rate.
In IPL 2020, Dinesh Karthik won the first 4 out of 7 games in the league stage as captain of which two of them were very close wins against CSK and PBKS. Karthik decided to step down as Captain to reduce the burden on his shoulders.
Dinesh Karthik as Captain of KKR in IPL won 19 out of 37 games overall.
KKR under Eoin Morgan's Captaincy in IPL:
2020: Won 3 out of 7 games (Team ended at 5th position out of 8 teams)
2021: Runners-up
When Eoin Morgan got the KKR captaincy in the middle of the 2020 IPL season, he managed to win only 3 of their remaining games and unfortunately KKR once again missed out on a spot in the playoffs due to their Net Run Rate.
In IPL 2021, under Morgan's Captaincy KKR reached the finals despite finishing in 4th position in the points table. Then in the final against CSK. KKR lost by 27 runs and ended as runners-up in that IPL season.
Eoin Morgan as Captain of KKR in IPL has won 12 out of 24 games overall.
KKR under Shreyas Iyer in IPL:
2022: 7th Position (10 teams)
KKR in IPL 2022 managed to win only 6 out of 14 games and as a result, they ended up finishing in 7th position in the Points table. It will be interesting to see how far Nitish Rana would be able to take forward KKR in IPL 2023.