KKR were certainly value for money as far as neutral fans watching last season's IPL were concerned. However, their lack of consistency particularly in the top order meant that they were never a realistic prospect for reaching the playoffs.
As we preview their 2024 IPL squad, it will become clear that they still possess plenty of star quality in their side but can they marry that with more of a killer instinct and general match intelligence to make it to the later stages this time around?
As alluded to in the introduction above, KKR were a little all over the place in IPL 2023.
At the top of the order, they chopped and changed throughout the season seeking a combination that could get them off to fast and consistent starts. However, as the stats below show, they lost more wickets in the powerplay than any other side, regularly putting a strong middle order and fairly long tail under huge pressure.
In fact but for a few truly magnificent innings from the likes of Rinku Singh, Venkatesh Iyer and Shardul Thakur, KKR's season could have been a total disaster!
Those poor starts were particularly costly at home, with Eden Gardens offering up plenty of runs generally in the form of 4s and 6s as opposition sides feasted on a very average seam attack and exploited the fact the KKR so often put themselves behind the 8-ball with their early innings collapses.
With ball in hand, KKR were particularly poor in the powerplay with the worst economy in the league and then again at the death where they went for the best part of 11 an over.
That lead to a complete overhaul of the seam bowling options over the close season with Southee, Ferguson, Umesh Yadav and Shardul Thakur all released.
On pitches that offered some turn, their tripple spin threat look very effective. Varun Chakaravarthy returned to form after a difficult 2022 season to pass the 20 wicket mark for the first time and Narine and Suyesh Sharma were the only other 2 KKR bowlers whose total wickets haul for the tournament made it to double figures.
Still, a few of their big name players including Narine and Andre Russell continued to show that they are no longer the force that they once were. KKR stalwarts they may be but baring an incredible turn around in their form, IPL 2024 will surely be their final season at the franchise as we head into the mega auction at the end of the year.
With the entirety of their capped fast bowling attack shown the exit door over the closed season then it was obvious that KKR's first priority at the auction was to bring in fast bowlers and they did so by smashing the record fee paid to a player to acquire the services of Mitchell Starc.
Outside of that they initially purchased Gus Atkinson as a back up option before England decided it'd be better if he returned to play some county cricket rather than carry the drinks in Kolkata. He's therefore been replaced by Sri Lanka's Dushmantha Chameera who was at LSG last season.
Other squad players in the form of Sherfane Rutherford (back-up for Russell) and Mujeeb Rahman (back-up for Narine) followed while KKR also acquired Indian keeper KS Bharat, a move that might give them a bit more flexibility in their top order selections should they opt not to play Gurbaz.
One area where there was a surprising lack of activity was in bringing in Indian seamers to help bolster their stocks. As we'll see later on, KKR are relying on a relatively small group of uncapped quicks who don't have great records in the IPL.
Career T20 records v types of bowling and in phases of the game
On paper, KKR have a very strong batting line-up if they can get the combinations right and stop putting themselves in difficult match situations by starting so badly with both bat and ball.
It's likely that KKR will need to choose between one of Roy or Gurbaz at the top of the order given that 3 of the overseas spots will almost certainly go to Russell, Narine and Starc.
Roy ended up being one of KKR's more consistent performers last season with 285 runs from the 8 matches he played. He has the potential to get this KKR side off to a very good start if he's in form. That might seem like an obvious statement to make but Roy is one of those players who is either very good or very poor so KKR will no doubt be monitoring his performances in the current PSL to see which Jason Roy they are getting in IPL 2024.
The return from injury of Shreyas Iyer is a major boost for the franchise. Not only will he captain the side but he will be able to shore up an otherwise wobbly top order and could potentially open the batting.
In the middle overs, KKR have plenty of good hitters of spin in the likes of Venkatesh Iyer and Nitesh Rana. Similarly, KS Bharat may not be seen as a T20 batsmen but his underlying stats show that he is effective against slow bowling and could do a good job in the middle order slotting in between those left handers if required.
That top and middle order should then set things up nicely for the power hitters in Russell and Rinku Singh to come in and finish things off at the death.
Career T20 bowling stats by phase of the game
With ball in hand, it does feel a little bit like KKR have thrown all of their eggs into a Mitchell Starc shaped basket especially as far as seamers are concerned.
Starc does possess the quality to take wickets throughout the innings but how his 4 overs are managed both by Iyer as captain and the opposition will be crucial. As we've seen throughout his career, Starc is a wicket taker in all formats but he can also go for runs.
The pressure then falls onto one or two of KKR's less heralded quicks in the form of Arora, Harshit Rana or Sakariya. Harshit Rana actually performed fairly well in the powerplay last season taking 4 wickets at an economy of 7.8 (certainly a lot better than many of his team mates managed). However, it was also evident that the KKR management were concerned about his abilities towards the end of an innings. He bowled just one over at the death last year and it went for 21!
With Sakariya and Arora also struggling to restrict scoring at the end of an innings, it would mean that KKR would probably have to hold Starc back for 2 overs at the death and then rely on Andre Russell to finish things off.
While not a bad option at the death, Russell is hardly in the same league as some of the specialist bowlers in that phase of the game that other franchises possess. It's also high-risk for any team to really trust that his body will hold up for the duration of a season - he managed just 15 overs in IPL 2023.
It also means that once again, KKR will be very reliant on their spinners in IPL 2024 which perhaps gives an indication of the kind of pitches we might well see produced at Eden Gardens this season. While the venue generally saw some very high run scoring, there were occasions (for example the match against RCB) where the ball spun a lot. I'd expect to see similar surfaces produced again where KKR continue to play 3 frontline spinners.
However, for any spin attack to be successful, they need the opposition under pressure. If KKR continue to leak runs at the start and end of the innings in the manner that they did last season then teams can afford to play in a risk free manner against the likes of Narine and Varun safe in the knowledge that they can make up the difference later on.
Having said that, teams were far more aggressive against Narine last year than they have been in the recent past. He finished IPL 2022 with an economy of slightly under a run a ball but in IPL 2023 he went for 7.98 an over, his highest economy rate in an IPL career spanning 12 seasons to date.
KKR are a bit of a tough one to predict because on paper they have a batting line-up that on their day could be unstoppable and enough star power with the ball to think they can trouble any side.
However, consistency has been a problem for the past couple of seasons and it remains to be seen whether they've fixed the issues with the top order that hampered any progress last year or plugged the gaps in their bowling attack that saw them conceed heavily at both ends of the innings.
KKR could well continue to be one of the most watchable teams in IPL 2024, capable of both winning and losing games out of nowhere.
The return of Shreyas Iyer both as captain and the glue to hold their top order together will be key while KKR are banking heavily on Mitchell Starc alongside the ageing Narine and Russell to give them one last hoorah in IPL.
Given how tight the fight for that last playoff spot usually is then I wouldn't completely rule them out of making it to the knockout phases but I think things will go wrong more than they go right for KKR in IPL 2024.
