Stephen Fleming, Brendon McCullum.
Stephen Fleming and Brendon McCullum. Image- Twitter.

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), along with the other 7 franchises on Wednesday announced their retained and released players list ahead of the auction for the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The auction is expected to take place in early February with the mega-event to be slated to begin in April – the IPL 2021 will take place in India this time after being hosted in the UAE last season.

However, the social media battle has already begun as the Kolkata Knight Riders trolled the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) head coach, Stephen Fleming after retaining Tim Seifert.

New Zealand vs India 2019, Tim Seifert, Player of the Series
Tim Seifert won the Player of the Series award. Image Courtesy: Getty

For the context, during the Pakistan vs New Zealand T20 series, Stephen Fleming, the former New Zealand captain, had shown interest in signing Tim Siefert for CSK. The wicket-keeper batsman was Man of the Series against Pakistan – he scored 176 runs in 3 T20Is.

“There’s a team in yellow that might have a look at you (Seifert) as well. Not just Brendon McCullum’s team, there are other teams out there,” Stephen Fleming said.

Kolkata Knight Riders troll Stephen Fleming

Now KKR has retained Seifert in their 17-member squad. The social media handle of KKR took a jibe at the CSK head coach. They posted a picture of Fleming and KKR head coach, Brendon Mc Cullum with a letter which read “Dear Flem, Sorry to disappoint. We are keeping him. #IPLretention.”

Kolkata Knight Riders has released 7 players from their squad of IPL 2020. The two-time champions finished fifth on the points table last season. They were pipped by Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore on net run rate after having the same points.

Kolkata Knight Riders
Kolkata Knight Riders (Credits: IPL)

KKR have offloaded their expensive signing Tom Banton along with Chris Green, Harry Gurney, and Ali Khan. Amongst Indian M Siddharth, Nikhil Naik, Siddhesh Lad has been released.

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KKR Retentions: Dinesh Karthik, Andre Russell, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Nitish Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Rinku Singh, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi, Shubman Gill, Sunil Narine, Eoin Morgan (c), Pat Cummins, Rahul Tripathi, Varun Chakravarthy, Tim Seifert

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