Venkatesh Iyer became the third expensive buy in IPL 2025 mega auction after Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant on Sunday when defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) secured the all-rounder's services for a whopping ₹23.75 crore. Started with a base price of ₹2 crore, KKR instantly started bidding for their warrior. Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) soon joined the bidding war at ₹6 crore.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) entered the fray at ₹8.50 crore. While LSG opted out, KKR continued to keep their paddle up. Although RCB fought till the end, it was three-time defending champions who got back their player. Earlier, Punjab Kings bought Shreyas for ₹26.75 crore while LSG got Pant at ₹27 crore.
Having joined KKR in 2020, Venkatesh has been an integral part of the Kolkata-franchise, impressive everyone in his debut season in Dubai. in his 10 games in 2020 IPL, Venkatesh scored 350 runs en route to KKR's road to final. Overall, Venkatesh has scored 1326 runs so far in 51 matches, all for KKR.
In fact, Venkatesh became the second KKR batter after 15 years in 2023 to score a hundred in IPL. He even scored a fifty in the IPL 2024 final against which they won against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Other than Venkatesh, KKR also secured the services of South African Quinton de Kock ( ₹3.6 crore) and Rahmanullah Gurbaz for ₹2 crore. It was homecoming for Afghanistan opener Gurbaz as he was a part of the KKR side for the past few seasons.
