World No.2 T20I batter joins KKR as Jason Roy betrays 2-time IPL champions

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have named Phil Salt as Jason Roy’s replacement ahead of IPL 2024. The England opener has pulled out of the season citing personal reasons.

This comes as a big blow to the franchise who were depending heavily on him in the new IPL season. Meanwhile, Roy’s replacement Phil Salt scored two back-to-back centuries against West Indies in a T20I series in December last year.

KKR now have two overseas keeper-batters to choose from with Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Salt himself. Salt’s explosive ability with the bat makes him a good replacement for KKR who have had problems with sorting out their opening combination since the last two seasons.

“Kolkata Knight Riders have named Phil Salt as a replacement for Jason Roy after the latter pulled out of the upcoming TATA IPL 2024 owing to personal reasons. Having remained unsold in the auction after representing Delhi Capitals last year, this will be Salt’s second season in the IPL.”

“Bought at his reserve price of INR 1.5 crore, the aggressive wicket-keeper batter from England scored two consecutive T20I centuries against the West Indies in December last year. His 48-ball century in the 4th T20I at Trinidad is also the joint-fastest for England,” read the statement from IPL.

KKR Name Phil Salt As Jason Roy’s Replacement For IPL 2024

🚨 NEWS 🚨

KKR name Phil Salt as replacement for Jason Roy.

Details 🔽 #TATAIPL | @KKRiders https://t.co/KjezlTn4b8

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) March 10, 2024

Jason Roy was retained by KKR ahead of the IPL 2024 auction. He scored 285 runs in 8 matches last year at an average of 35.63. He scored two fifties in the season and scored his runs at a strike rate of 151.60.

Salt comes in as a very able replacement in place of his England teammate. He was bought by Delhi Capitals at his base price of 1.5 crores in IPL 2023. He scored 218 runs at a strike rate of 163.91 last season. However, despite his exploits with the bat, Delhi Capitals released him last season which gave KKR a chance to sign him as a replacement.

KKR previously named Dushmantha Chameera as a replacement for Gus Atkinson after the England pacer pulled out of IPL 2024 as the ECB wants to manage his workload. The England pacer was part of the squad that traveled to India for the Test series but did not feature in any of the Test matches. Meanwhile, Chameera has an IPL experience of 12 matches taking nine wickets at an economy rate of 8.73. Apart from Chameera, Mitchell Starc is the only overseas frontline quick in Knight Riders’ squad.

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Speaking about Roy, he is currently playing for the Quetta Gladiators in the PSL. He has scored 231 runs in seven matches at an average of 33.00 and a strike rate of 149.03. His unavailability is one of the major reasons why he has gone unsold at IPL auctions over the years. He also joined KKR as a replacement for Shakib Al Hasan in IPL 2023 as the Bangladesh skipper pulled out due to personal reasons.

KKR Squad For IPL 2024

Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Phil Salt, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Dusmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain.

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