Players
Sourav Ganguly, the former captain of the Indian cricket team was the icon player and led the franchise in the 2008 and 2010 seasons. Brendon McCullum led the team in the intervening period. Both the captains were released before the 2011 season. The former team included all-rounders Chris Gayle, David Hussey, Mohammad Hafeez, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Angelo Mathews, batsman Ricky Ponting, Brad Hodge, Salman Butt and wicket-keeper Wriddhiman Saha. The main bowlers were Umar Gul, Shoaib Akhtar, Ishant Sharma, Ashok Dinda, Ajit Agarkar and Murali Karthik. Australian batsman Brad Hodge and bowlers Ajantha Mendis and Charl Langeveldt were bought outside the IPL auction in late 2008.
At the 2009 auction, the team bought Bangladeshi all-rounder Mashrafe Mortaza for $600,000. Due to the unavailability of Pakistani players starting 2009, KKR had to suspend the contract of Umar Gul, who was a key performer from the 2008 season.[41][42] On 26 April 2009, KKR administration sent back two of its players Akash Chopra and Sanjay Bangar on the premises of poor performance.[43] Shane Bond was acquired after releasing Ricky Ponting, Morne van Wyk and the Pakistani players Umar Gul, Salman Butt, Mohammad Hafeez and Shoaib Akhtar before the third season. Moises Henriques was traded to Delhi in return for Owais Shah and Manoj Tiwary. Thus, their overseas roster for the 2010 season consisted of Shane Bond, Mashrafe Mortaza, Brendon McCullum, Charl Langeveldt, Ajantha Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Brad Hodge, David Hussey, Owais Shah and Chris Gayle.
2011 heralded the beginning of a new era for KKR. In the 2011 season, KKR drastically revamped their squad. Former captain and icon player Sourav Ganguly was not purchased in the January auction. This led to protest rallies, signature campaigns throughout the country and abroad along with stadium protests by various fan groups, such as 'No Dada No KKR',[44] which received both national and international press attention.[45][46][47] The team appointed Gautam Gambhir, who was bought for a record-breaking $2.4 million as skipper.[48] Yusuf Pathan was also picked up for $2.1 million.[48] Other international names who were added include Shakib Al Hasan, Brad Haddin, Jacques Kallis, Brett Lee, Ryan ten Doeschate, Eoin Morgan and James Pattinson. Haddin was replaced by Mark Boucher mid-season due to injury.[48]
In the 2012 auction, KKR bought back their former captain, Brendon McCullum. They also acquired West Indian spinner Sunil Narine and South African fast bowler Marchant de Lange.
The team later added four domestic players to their squad, including Debabrata Das and Iresh Saxena from Bengal, Saurashtra's Chirag Jani and Sanju Samson from Kerala.[49] However, in November 2012, KKR released the latter three from their team along with Jaydev Unadkat, a key performer from the previous seasons.
In the 2013 auction, the team acquired only two overseas players, Sachithra Senanayake and Ryan McLaren.
Before the February 2014 auction, the team had only retained their key performers Gautam Gambhir and Sunil Narine. From the auctions that took place, the team brought back Jacques Kallis and Yusuf Pathan with their right-to-match (RTM) card. Also keeping their place in the squad were Ryan ten Doeschate and Shakib Al Hasan. New international players were Morne Morkel, Patrick Cummins and Chris Lynn. Prominent Indian players bought included Robin Uthappa, Umesh Yadav, Manish Pandey, Suryakumar Yadav and Piyush Chawla.
KKR's impressive additions in the 2015 auction were veteran Australian bowler Brad Hogg and wicket-keeper Sheldon Jackson. Before the auction in February 2016, they released Ryan ten Doeschate who was a part of their team for five consecutive seasons along with pace bowler Pat Cummins. The Knight Riders were particularly noted for their change in approach from the previous auctions where they had concentrated on spinners. For the 2016 edition, however, they acquired as many as six pacers in the form of all-rounders John Hastings, Colin Munro, Jason Holder and Rajagopal Sathish as well as bowlers Ankit Rajpoot and Jaydev Unadkat, with the latter being a former player of the squad. They signed one spinner Manan Sharma.[50]
Before the 2017 auctions, they released Morne Morkel, Brad Hogg, Jason Holder, Colin Munro, John Hastings, Jaydev Unadkat, Rajagopal Sathish, Manan Sharma and replacement signing Shaun Tait. From the 2017 Indian Premier League auction, they signed Trent Boult, English all-rounder Chris Woakes, Australian Nathan Coulter-Nile, West Indian Darren Bravo and Jamaican Rovman Powell. The domestic players signed were Rishi Dhawan, Ishank Jaggi, Sayan Ghosh and R Sanjay Yadav. At the time, Andre Russell was banned for one year for doping; he was replaced by Colin de Grandhomme for the season.
In January 2018, they only retained West Indian cricketers Sunil Narine and Andre Russell. Their two-time title winning captain Gautam Gambhir was released. At the auction, they retained Robin Uthappa, Piyush Chawla and Kuldeep Yadav using RTM (Right-To-Match) card. KKR also bought back opener Chris Lynn and uncapped Indian batsman Ishank Jaggi. Other uncapped batsmen bought were Nitish Rana, Shubman Gill, Cameron Delport, Rinku Singh and Apoorv Wankhade. They also bought West Indian uncapped all-rounder Javon Searles and uncapped Indian all-rounders Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shivam Mavi. Other signings were veteran Indian wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik, Australian pace bowlers Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Johnson and former Knight Riders player Vinay Kumar.
On 4 March 2018, Dinesh Karthik was appointed as the captain of KKR for IPL 2018 and Robin Uthappa was named vice-captain.[51] Mitchell Starc was ruled out before the season due to injury and Tom Curran was announced as his replacement. Ahead of the auction for IPL 2019, eight players were released from the squad including Mitchell Starc and his replacement Tom Curran.
At the auction, their high-profile buys were Carlos Brathwaite for ₹50 million (US$630,000) and New Zealand pacer Lockie Ferguson for ₹16 million (US$200,000). Other players bought were South African pacer Anrich Nortje, English duo Harry Gurney and Joe Denly as well as uncapped Indian players Nikhil Naik, Prithvi Raj Yarra and Shrikant Mundhe for their base prices of ₹2 million (US$25,000) each. Before IPL 2020, KKR released 11 players from their squad and also traded in Siddhesh Lad from Mumbai Indians.
At the 2020 IPL Auction, KKR bought pace bowler Pat Cummins for ₹15.5 crores. This was the biggest buy in the auction.[52] KKR also purchased Eoin Morgan, who just came off as captain of the World Cup winning England squad. He was bought for ₹5.25 crores.[53] On 16 October 2020, Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Dinesh Karthik handed over Kolkata Knight Riders' captaincy to Eoin Morgan.[54]
Since 2022 was a mega auction, Kolkata Knight Riders had to release majority of players including top order batsman Shubman Gill, skipper Eoin Morgan and vice captain Dinesh Karthik. KKR retained 4 players; Andre Russell for ₹12 crore, Sunil Narine for ₹6 crore and Varun Chakravarthy and Venkatesh Iyer for ₹8 crore each. With ₹48 crore in their purse, KKR bought marquee players Shreyas Iyer for ₹12.25 crore and re-signed Pat Cummins for ₹7.25 crore. KKR also bought back Nitish Rana, Sheldon Jackson, Rinku Singh, Shivam Mavi and Tim Southee. Overseas players included English wicket-keeper Sam Billings for ₹2 crore, English batsman Alex Hales for ₹1.5 crore, Afghan all-rounder Mohammed Nabi for ₹1 crore and Sri Lankan all-rounder Chamika Karunaratne for ₹50 lakh. KKR also signed top order batsman Ajinkya Rahane, Jharkhand left-handed spin all-rounder Anukul Roy and Jammu and Kashmir pacer Rasikh Salam Dar. They also bought back their former player Umesh Yadav for the base price of 2 crores, who last played for them in 2017. Alex Hales didn't turn up for the IPL citing personal reasons and KKR signed Australian skipper Aaron Finch as his replacement. In the middle of tournament, Rasikh suffered injury which ruled him out of IPL tournament. Due to this, KKR signed fast bowler Harshit Rana as the replacement.