Venkatesh Iyer has set his base price at INR 2 crore.
All-rounder Venkatesh Iyer was let go by Kolkata Knight Riders last year, ahead of the mega auction, but he was acquired back at a hefty price. However, after a bad Indian Premier League outing last season, he was released once again. KKR CEO Venky Mysore broke the silence on the movements for Venkatesh Iyer. The IPL 2026 auction is scheduled for December 16 in Abu Dhabi.
The three-time champions KKR will enter the mini auction with the highest purse of INR 64.3 crore, but will also have plenty to shop for. The departures of Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, and Moeen Ali have created a huge hole in the all-rounder category as they have a total of 13 spots to fill, including six overseas players.
Venky Mysore told ESPNcricinfo that Iyer’s poor return in 2025, his worst since 2021, weighed on the high price tag, stressing that the team management’s choice to release Iyer offers flexibility on the auction table.
“If he had scored 500 runs, he would’ve said, ‘Hey, price tag doesn’t matter at all.’ Maybe it did (grins), and it weighed (on Venkatesh). The thought process that goes through the franchise think-tank at the table is, What would you rather do? So last year, in many ways, it was a bit of a learning thing for us; it was purely very, very circumstantial. This is probably the first time we have done something like that: picked a big player at a price that was quite exciting. Now, because of the mini-auction dynamics rather than anything else, we decided to release him.”
After buying back his services at the IPL 2025 mega auction for a whopping INR 23.75 crore and naming deputy captain to Ajinkya Rahane, Iyer endured a terrific season. He managed 142 runs in 11 matches at an average of 20.28 with a strike rate of 139.21. He didn’t bowl a single over. This must have prompted KKR to release him ahead of the IPL 2026 auction as the all-rounder set his base price at INR 2 crore among 1,355 players for 77 slots.
However, it wasn’t just Iyer who didn’t live up to the expectations, as only two batters, captain Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi, scored 300+ runs in a season. All KKR batters combined managed 1,886 runs in IPL 2025—the only team below 2,000. Additionally, the franchise witnessed only seven individual fifties from their batters, the least among all teams, highlighting their batting struggles.
As a result, KKR finished eighth on the points table, with five wins and 12 points.
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