KKR's Ultimatum: Breaking the Bank for Venkatesh Iyer

During the auction, a fierce bidding war erupted for Venkatesh Iyer, with both KKR and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) vying for his signature. Ultimately, it was Venky Mysore and KKR who came out on top with a winning bid of INR 23.25 crore. The KKR CEO has now disclosed that it was actually Iyer who issued them an ultimatum to pursue him in the mega auction.

"For us it was about trying to keep our core. We've kept six players and brought 2-3 players back from last year. that was always the kind of thinking and as far as he (Venkatesh) is concerned we definitely did't want to find ourselves in a situation where we may not be able to bing him back," Venky Mysore said, as per ESPNcricinfo.

"But it always balances itself. When you look at Quinton de Kock (INR 3.60 crore) and Nortje (INR 6.50 crore) that we've picked, it balances off in many ways. On an overall basis, it all works out," he added.

Venky Mysore revealed that Venkatesh Iyer spoke to them before the auction, saying he would be very said if KKR don't go all out for him in the auction.

"They've proven on the field what they can do. You saw in a championship year, and one year we went to the final as well, in 2021. He (Venkatesh) was highly instrumental and terrific guy in the team. He had clearly given us an ultimatum that, 'If you don't pick me, I will be very sad'. So we didn't want him to be sad, and we're also very happy," said Mysore.

The first day of the mega auction saw as many as three players bag deals of over INR 20 crore each. Rishabh Pant was bought by Lucknow Super Giants for INR 27 crore while Shreyas Iyer went to Punjab Kings for INR 26.25 crore.

When asked if he was surprised with such big price tags, the KKR CEO said, "Not really, to be honest. Players put in their base prices only, we're the ones who are raising the paddle. It's always a function of what the availability of the purse is and in that situation and timing what not. I still maintain that the RTM rule should have been the old rule."

Prior to the auction, KKR retained Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Harshit Rana and Ramandeep Singh.

In the mega auction, the franchise has so far acquired Venkatesh Iyer, Vaibhav Arora, Anrich Nortje, Quinton de Kock, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramanullah Gurbaz and Mayank Markande.