Nitish Rana Names KKR Captain For IPL 2023

Nitish Rana has been named captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders for the IPL 2023 season.

The Kolkata Knight Riders have named Nitish Rana as their captain for the IPL 2023 season, putting an end to all doubt about their leadership position. Rana, who has been with the team since 2018, will take over as Shreyas Iyer recovers from a back ailment. Rana has led Delhi in 12 T20s at the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, winning eight of them, and has scored 1744 runs in 74 matches for KKR with a strike rate of 135.61.

"The Kolkata Knight Riders announced today that Nitish Rana will captain the team in place of Shreyas Lyer, who is recovering from a back injury." While we are hopeful that Shreyas will recover and play in the IPL 2023, we are confident that Nitish, who has captaincy experience having led his state side in white ball cricket and IPL experience having been with KKR since 2018, will do an excellent job," KKR said in an official statement.

Earlier in the day, various sources suggested that KKR were considering making Sunil Narine or Shardul Thakur their captain as a stop-gap measure for Iyer. While they were considered to be accurate, considering Narine's involvement with the brand dating back to 2012, there were concerns about Shardul. It was also said that KKR would have a huge celebration to introduce their captain, but none of these statements proved to be true. To make the announcement, KKR published a statement on their Twitter account as well as a video on Rana.

With Rana's elevation, KKR will begin the IPL 2023 with a new captain-coach combo. Earlier, renowned coach Chandrakant Pandit was named the franchise's new head coach, succeeding Brendon McCullum, who resigned last year following a three-year spell to join the England national cricket team. Pandit has a proven coaching track record, having won the Ranji Trophy six times with various teams, including leading Madhya Pradesh to their first title last year.

"We are also confident that under Head Coach Chandrakant Pandit and the support staff, he will receive all necessary off-field support, and the highly experienced leaders in the squad will provide all necessary on-field support." "We wish him the best in his new role and Shreyas a complete and speedy recovery," the press release continued.

However, Rana's hiring appears to be on an interim basis, with Iyer slated to miss at least the first half of the IPL 2023 owing to a back ailment acquired during the fourth India vs. Australia Test. He was ruled out of the ODI series, and there is no set date for Iyer's return.