"Indore se aaya hamara Knight" - KKR welcome Venkatesh Iyer back for IPL 2022

Opening sensation Venkatesh Iyer has joined the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Mumbai ahead of IPL 2022. The left-hander was retained by the Knights ahead of this season for ₹8 crores after an outstanding debut season last year.

The franchise welcomed the 27-year-old on Instagram and wrote:

"𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘢𝘺𝘢 𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘢 𝘒𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 😍 @venkatesh.iyer2512 #KKR #KKRHaiTaiyaar #IPL2022"

Venkatesh Iyer, who was handed his debut last year, was sensational with the bat and played a key role in helping the IPL team finish as the runners-up in 2021.

The all-rounder featured in 10 games for the team thus far and has mustered 370 runs at an average of 41.11 and a strike rate of 128.47. Iyer also registered four half-centuries and accounted for three wickets with the ball.

View the IPL 2022 News here.

Venkatesh Iyer's pay hike for IPL 2022

Venkatesh, who was acquired for ₹20 lakhs before IPL 2021, received a 40x pay hike for this season. His IPL form has also earned him a place in the Team India squad. He debuted in both T20Is and ODIs over the last year and has been doing well in the finisher's role

This year, Venkatesh will be playing under the leadership of Shreyas Iyer who has been appointed the IPL captain for the upcoming season. Iyer himself has been in some mind-blowing form. In the recent T20I series against Sri Lanka, he registered unbeaten scores of 57, 74 and 73. He followed it up with a couple of good performances in the Test series.

KKR's squad for IPL 2022:

Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer, Sunil Narine, Shreyas Iyer, Pat Cummins, Nitish Rana, Shivam Mavi, Sheldon Jackson, Ajinkya Rahane, Rinku Singh, Anukul Roy, Rasikh Dar, Chamika Karunaratne, Baba Indrajith, Ashok Sharma, Pratham Singh, Abhijeet Tomar, Sam Billings, Aaron Finch, Ramesh Kumar, Mohammed Nabi, Aman Khan, Umesh Yadav