# 2025 Kolkata Knight Riders season

The 2025 season will be the 18th appearance for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League. They are one of the ten teams competing this year and will enter as the defending champions after defeating the Sunrisers Hyderabad by 8 wickets in the previous edition's final, ending a 10-year trophy drought.

## Background
### Pre-Auction
#### Retentions

The player retentions were announced by the teams on October 31, 2024. The Kolkata Knight Riders utilized their entire retention capacity and retained six players: four capped and two uncapped. They have a remaining budget of ₹51 crore (US$5.8 million) and no Right-To-Match (RTM) option available.
Players retained :
| Player | Salary |
| Rinku Singh | ₹13 crore (US$1.5 million) |
| Sunil Narine | ₹12 crore (US$1.4 million) |
| Varun Chakravarthy | ₹12 crore (US$1.4 million) |
| Andre Russell | ₹12 crore (US$1.4 million) |
| Harshit Rana | ₹4 crore (US$460,000) |
| Ramandeep Singh | ₹4 crore (US$460,000) |

#### Releases

Kolkata Knight Riders released 17 players ahead of the Mega-Auction, including its title-winning captain, Shreyas Iyer.
Players released pre-auction :
| Role | Players |
| Batters | Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manish Pandey, Nitish Rana, Shreyas Iyer |
| Wicket-keepers | KS Bharat, Phil Salt, Rahmanullah Gurbaz |
| All-rounders | Anukul Roy, Sherfane Rutherford, Venkatesh Iyer |
| Pace bowlers | Chetan Sakariya, Dushmantha Chameera, Mitchell Starc, Sakib Hussain, Vaibhav Arora |
| Spin bowlers | Allah Ghazanfar, Suyash Sharma |
Before the 2025 Mega Auction, the Knight Riders organised a mock auction to understand the fans' choices and the best team will get a chance to conduct a meeting with the KKR Think Tank.

### Support staff changes

Gautam Gambhir was appointed as the head coach of the Indian cricket team, which prevented him from assisting the Knight Riders in the future. As a result, Dwayne Bravo, who has connections with the Knight Riders family from his time playing for the Trinbago Knight Riders, was appointed as the new mentor. Abhishek Nayar and Ryan ten Doeschate also joined Gambhir as the assistant coaches of the Indian team respectively. In March 2025, KKR announced Ottis Gibson as the replacement of Ryan ten Doeschate.
Support staff changes of Kolkata Knight Riders :
| Position | Outgoing | Incoming |
| Mentor | Gautam Gambhir | Dwayne Bravo |
| Assistant & batting coach | Abhishek Nayar | TBA |
| Assistant & Fielding coach | Ryan ten Doeschate | Ottis Gibson |

## Squad

* Players with international caps are listed in bold.
* Given ages are as of 1 January 2025 (2025-1-1).

## Administration and support staff

| Position | Name |
| Head / Director of Cricket | Venky Mysore |
| Team manager | Wayne Bentley |
| Head coach | Chandrakant Pandit |
| Mentor | Dwayne Bravo |
| Assistant coach | Ottis Gibson |
| Batting coach | TBA |
| Bowling coach | Bharat Arun |
| Spin bowling coach | Carl Crowe |
| Fielding coach | TBA |
| Head of scouting | Biju George |
| Analyst | Nathan Leamon |
| Strenght and Conditioning coach | Chris Donaldson |
| Physiotherapist | Prasanth Panchada |

## League stage
### Points table

| Pos | Grp | Teamvte | Pld | W | L | NR | Pts | NRR | Qualification |
| 1 | A | Chennai Super Kings | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | Advance to Qualifier 1 |
| 2 | B | Delhi Capitals | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | Advance to Qualifier 1 |
| 3 | B | Gujarat Titans | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | Advance to Eliminator |
| 4 | A | Kolkata Knight Riders | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | Advance to Eliminator |
| 5 | B | Lucknow Super Giants | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | |
| 6 | B | Mumbai Indians | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | |
| 7 | A | Punjab Kings | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | |
| 8 | A | Rajasthan Royals | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | |
| 9 | A | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | |
| 10 | B | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | |

### League progression

League progression :
| Team | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Group matches | Playoffs | Playoffs | Playoffs |
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | Q1/E | Q2 | F |
| Kolkata Knight Riders | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Win | Loss | No result |
* Note: The total points at the end of each group match are listed.
* Note: Click on the points (group matches) or W/L (playoffs) to see the match summary.

### Fixtures and results

* Match 1 22 March 2025 (2025-03-22) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Kolkata Knight Riders (H) | v | Royal Challengers Bengaluru |
* Eden Gardens, Kolkata Umpires: Abhijeet Bengeri (Ind) and Vinod Seshan (Ind)
* Match 6 26 March 2025 (2025-03-26) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Rajasthan Royals (H) | v | Kolkata Knight Riders |
* Barsapara Cricket Stadium, Guwahati Umpires: Rohan Pandit (Ind) and Akshay Totre (Ind)
* Match 12 31 March 2025 (2025-03-31) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Mumbai Indians (H) | v | Kolkata Knight Riders |
* Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai Umpires: Saiyed Khalid (Ind) and Saidharshan Kumar (Ind)
* Match 15 3 April 2025 (2025-04-03) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Kolkata Knight Riders (H) | v | Sunrisers Hyderabad |
* Eden Gardens, Kolkata Umpires: Adrian Holdstock (SA) and Akshay Totre (Ind)
* Match 19 6 April 2025 (2025-04-06) 15:30 (D/N) Scorecard
| Kolkata Knight Riders (H) | v | Lucknow Super Giants |
* Eden Gardens, Kolkata Umpires: Adrian Holdstock (SA) and Akshay Totre (Ind)
* Match 25 11 April 2025 (2025-04-11) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Chennai Super Kings (H) | v | Kolkata Knight Riders |
* M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai Umpires: Chris Gaffaney (NZ) and Parashar Joshi (Ind)
* Match 31 15 April 2025 (2025-04-15) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Punjab Kings (H) | v | Kolkata Knight Riders |
* Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, Mullanpur Umpires: Mohit Krishnadas (Ind) and Saidharshan Kumar (Ind)
* Match 39 21 April 2025 (2025-04-21) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Kolkata Knight Riders (H) | v | Gujarat Titans |
* Eden Gardens, Kolkata Umpires: Rohan Pandit (Ind) and Anish Sahasrabudhe (Ind)
* Match 44 26 April 2025 (2025-04-26) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Kolkata Knight Riders (H) | v | Punjab Kings |
* Eden Gardens, Kolkata Umpires: Adrian Holdstock (SA) and Anish Sahasrabudhe (Ind)
* Match 48 29 April 2025 (2025-04-29) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Delhi Capitals (H) | v | Kolkata Knight Riders |
* Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi Umpires: Mohit Krishnadas (Ind) and Saidharshan Kumar (Ind)
* Match 53 4 May 2025 (2025-05-04) 15:30 (D/N) Scorecard
| Kolkata Knight Riders (H) | v | Rajasthan Royals |
* Eden Gardens, Kolkata Umpires: Rohan Pandit (Ind) and Anish Sahasrabudhe (Ind)
* Match 57 7 May 2025 (2025-05-07) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Kolkata Knight Riders (H) | v | Chennai Super Kings |
* Eden Gardens, Kolkata Umpires: Adrian Holdstock (SA) and Anish Sahasrabudhe (Ind)
* Match 60 10 May 2025 (2025-05-10) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Sunrisers Hyderabad (H) | v | Kolkata Knight Riders |
* Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad Umpires: Michael Gough (Eng) and Kannur Swaroopanand (Ind)
* Match 68 17 May 2025 (2025-05-17) 19:30 (N) Scorecard
| Royal Challengers Bengaluru (H) | v | Kolkata Knight Riders |
* M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru Umpires: K. N. Ananthapadmanabhan (Ind) and Nitin Menon (Ind)