Sri Lankan batting legend Kumar Sangakkara is expected to replace Gautam Gambhir as mentor of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) franchise for the IPL 2025 season.

According to a report published in The Telegraph, the defending champions are in talks with Sangakkara to take over the mentor role, which remains vacant ever since Gambhir left the position to join the Indian cricket team as head coach.

The sources have suggested that Sangakkara, who has been associated with Rajasthan Royals (RR) since 2021, has decided to part ways with the franchise.

The former Sri Lanka skipper is also considering offers from some other IPL teams, and a call on his move to KKR is likely to be made sooner than later.

Meanwhile, former India head coach Rahul Dravid is set to be appointed as the new head coach of the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL, and there are reports claiming that former India batting coach Vikram Rathour may join the Dravid-led coaching staff.

Talking about KKR’s coaching staff, Chandrakant Pandit is currently holding the head coach post while Bharat Arun is the bowling coach of the three-time IPL champions. Along with Gambhir, fielding coach Ryan ten Doeschate and assistant coach Abhishek Nayar have left the franchise to join the Indian team as assistant coaches.

As per reports, Sangakkara was in a race to become England’s new white-ball head coach but the ECB confirmed Brendon McCullum’s appointment for the same role a couple of days ago.

Sangakkara has produced impressive results for Rajasthan Royals in the last three editions. During his tenure, RR managed to qualify for the IPL final in 2022 while the Jaipur-based franchise finished third on the points table this season to qualify for the eliminator match, where they defeated RCB but lost to SRH in Qualifier 2.