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Knights also rope in Trent Boult, Nathan Coulter Nile and Chris Woakes

Internet Desk: The Knights were in the lookout for having a genuine quick bowler and they will be more than happy to rope in two of them. New Zealander Trent Boult and Aussie Nathan Coulter Nile are perfect substitutions for Morne Morkel. The two time former champions suffered a setback ahead of the auction with Andre Russell serving a suspension. But the Shah Rukh Khan owned franchise bought Jamaica Tallawas hard hitting all-rounder Rovman Powell. While Ben Stokes would have been ideal, but then the England all-rounder would be an expensive buy. The Knights management ended up going for specific players for roles that needed to be filled.

According to KKR CEO Venky Mysore, “He (Rovman) is a perfect replacement for Russell as we feel he can fit in the role of an all-rounder.”

The Knights picked the players that they wanted, went for them with surgical precision and ended up with everyone that they wanted to have a settled and balanced squad ahead of the tenth edition of the tournament.

In total, they bought nine players at the auction in Bengaluru and have a squad of 23 players to choose from going into IPL 2017, with the maximum of nine overseas players and also INR 5.4 crore in the bank.

As far as all-rounders were concerned both England cricketer Chris Woakes and Rishi Dhawan fill the gap.

The Knights also tried to get England T20 specialist bowler Tymal Mills, but at the end moved away to pave way for Royal Challengers to pick him.

The Knights also added some astute uncapped buys in Sayan Ghosh, Sanjay Yadav and got arguably the steal of the auction when they secured in-form youngster Ishank Jaggi for just 10 lakh.

KKR squad for IPL 2017 – Gautam Gambhir (C), Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Kuldeep Yadav, Manish Pandey, Suryakumar Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Robin Uthappa (WK), Shakib Al Hasan, Chris Lynn, Umesh Yadav, Yusuf Pathan, Sheldon Jackson (WK), Ankit Rajpoot, Trent Boult, Chris Woakes, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rishi Dhawan, Darren Bravo, Rovman Powell, Sayan Ghosh, R Sanjay Yadav, Ishank Jaggi