Delhi: The journey of defending champion Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in 2025 ended May 25 when he suffered a 110 -run defeat against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in his final league match. In the match played at Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, SRH batted first and scored a huge score of 278/3, in response to which the KKR team was reduced to just 168 runs. With this defeat, Kolkata finished this season at eighth place. The team scored only 12 points in 14 matches.
One of the biggest reasons for this poor batting of KKR was that of Venkatesh Iyer, who was bought by the franchise for a huge amount of Rs 23 crore. However, his performance was very poor throughout the season. In the last match against Hyderabad, he did not get a place in the playing XI. He was definitely on the list of Impact Substitutes, but the team did not take him to bat.
This was the second time in IPL 2025, when Venkatesh Iyer was dropped from the team. Earlier, on 7 May, he was also excluded from the team against Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
Akash Chopra, veteran commentator and former India opener Akash Chopra, said on his YouTube channel, “The biggest news of this match was not to be fed to Venkatesh Iyer. He was in the list of Impact Substitutes, but you did not send him to bat. You fed Manish Pandey and Ankrish Raghuvanshi, all the batting, Ramandip Singh and Rinku Singh were fed but Not to Venkatesh. “
He further said, “Is there an indication that KKR is preparing to release him next year? By releasing the amount of 23 crores, an attempt can be made to buy them cheaply. It could be a possibility. I think we have got a sign for the next season.”
Significantly, Venkatesh Iyer played 11 matches for KKR this season and could only score 142 runs. His average was 20.29 and the strike rate was 139.22.
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(Tagstotranslate) IPL 2025 (T) Kolkata Knight Riders (T) Venkatesh Iyer