The two-time IPL winners Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have named Delhi’s Nitish Rana as their captain for the IPL 2023 in absence of regular skipper Shreyas Iyer who is set to miss some part of the tournament due to his back injury.

Shreyas Iyer, who joined the KKR franchise in IPL 2022, had led the team well, despite their seventh-place finish with 6 wins and 8 losses in the tournament.

The KKR franchise had made some big changes as they brought in the likes of Lockie Ferguson and Rahmanullah Gurbaz from Gujarat Titans in a trade, while also getting Shardul Thakur from Delhi Capitals in a trade as well.

On Monday, March 27, 2023, Kolkata Knight Riders announced that Nitish Rana will be captaining the side in absence of Shreyas Iyer on their social media accounts.

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“Kolkata Knight Riders today announced that Nitish Rana would captain the side in the absence of Shreyas Iyer, who is recovering from a back injury. While we are hopeful that Shreyas will recover and participate at some stage in the IPL 2023 edition, we feel fortunate that Nitish, with the captaincy experience having led his state side in white ball cricket and the IPL experience he has had with KKR since 2018, will do a great job.

We are also confident that under Head Coach Chandrakant Pandit and the support staff, he will get all the support needed off the field, and the highly experienced leaders in the squad will provide all support that Nitish may need on the field. We wish him the best in his new role and Shreyas a full and speedy recovery,” KKR said in a statement.

Rana has led his state team Delhi in 12 T20s in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, with eight wins and four defeats. A 29-year-old middle-order batter, Rana was bought by KKR ahead of the 2018 season and has played 74 matches for them, scoring 1744 runs at a strike rate of 135.61.