Nitish Rana has been appointed as an interim captain by Kolkata Knight Riders. At the same time, their regular captain Shreyas Iyer is recovering from a back injury likely to sideline him for at least the 1st half of IPL 2023.
Nitish Rana was one of two candidates for the temporary captaincy along with Sunil Narine, who has been playing for the franchise since 2012 and has been with them ever since. Sunil Narine had recently led Abu Dhabi Knight Riders in the first season of the International League T20, where they finished last among the six teams with one win & eight losses.
Nitish Rana has led his state team Delhi in 12 T20s in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, with eight wins and four defeats, but he has yet to gain substantial International Cricket experience. He joined the list of IPL Captains who only had a little International Cricket experience when they started leading an IPL Team.
3. Shreyas Iyer (12 matches)
When Gautam Gambhir stepped down from the captaincy of Delhi Daredevils (now Capitals), Shreyas Iyer had just played 12 international matches. In November 2017, Shreyas made his debut for India in a T20I match against New Zealand, and a month later, he made his debut in an ODI match.
Before captaining his first IPL match, which happened to be against his current team, KKR, he played six ODIs and six T20Is.
2. Karun Nair (8 matches)
Zaheer Khan was initially the captain for Delhi Daredevils in IPL 2017. Karun Nair took over as captain when Zaheer got hurt in the middle of the season.
Before the 2017 IPL season, Karun broke the record for the player with the least amount of international experience by making his IPL captaincy debut after playing just two ODIs and six Tests. In addition, before he was appointed skipper in 2017, he had only scored 17 runs on average in six innings.
3. Sanju Samson (7 matches)
Sanju Samson was named captain by the Rajasthan Royals (RR) shortly after they released Steven Smith before the 2021 Indian Premier League. Samson had played a mere seven T20Is for India before his debut as league captain.
Sanju Samson has led Rajasthan Royals well in IPL 2022 as his side finished 2nd on the points table. This is just the 2nd time in IPL’s history that RR has finished in the top 2 after the league stage.
