IPL Auction 2018 Kolkata Knight Riders: Full list of players bought by KKR

Kolkata Knight Riders will begin a new era in IPL 2018 as they are without several players that helped them claim two IPL titles, including Gautam Gambhir. At the IPL Auction 2018 in Bengaluru, KKR went big for marquee overseas stars and had their eyes on India's U-19 stars. Having already retained two players, KKR used their three RTMs to bring back Robin Uthappa, Piyush Chawla and Kuldeep Yadav.

In total, they bought just 17 players at the Auction in Bengaluru and have a squad of 19 players, including seven overseas ones to choose from going into IPL 2018. Although they bought the fewest number of players in the Auction, they were the only side to use up all their money.

List of players bought by the KKR at the IPL 2018 auction –

Chris Lynn - ₹9.6 crore

Mitchell Starc - ₹9.4 crore

Dinesh Karthik - ₹7.4 crore

Robin Uthappa - ₹6.4 crore

Kuldeep Yadav - ₹5.8 crore

Piyush Chawla - ₹4.2 crore

Nitish Rana - ₹3.4 crore

Kamlesh Nagarkoti - ₹3.2 crore

Shivam Mavi - ₹3 crore

Mitchell Johnson - ₹2 crore

Shubman Gill - ₹1.8 crore

Vinay Kumar - ₹1 crore

Rinku Singh - ₹80 lakh

Cameron Delport - ₹30 lakh

Javon Searless - ₹30 lakh

Apoorv Wankhade - ₹20 lakh

Ishank Jaggi - ₹20 lakh

Going into the auction, KKR retained two foreign players knew that they needed to sign Indian players to form the spine of the side. They had two all-rounders and needed everyone, from openers, middle-order batsmen to death bowlers.

At the Auction

The two-time IPL champions broke their own record for most expensive foreign player twice as they signed the Australian duo of Mitchell Starc and Chris Lynn on day one. Going after those two early meant that they were always going to end up short of cash towards the end of the Auction and that is how it turned out.

Despite that, they managed to get back the trio of Robin Uthappa, Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla while Indian limited-overs star Dinesh Karthik was KKR's biggest Indian buy at ₹7.4 crore.

After going for the two foreign players at the start, KKR then decided to focus on young Indian players, including some of the Indian stars from the ongoing U-19 World Cup in New Zealand. Shubman Gill, Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shivam Mavi all went for more than INR 1 crore.

Towards the end, they also got in a couple of shrewd overseas buys at their base price in Cameron Delport, Mitchell Johnson and the final buy of the auction in Javon Searless.

KKR final squad for IPL 2018

Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Chris Lynn, Mitchell Starc, Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Kuldeep Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Nitish Rana, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Mitchell Johnson, Shubman Gill, Vinay Kumar, Rinku Singh, Cameron Delport, Javon Searless, Apoorv Wankhade, Ishank Jaggi