Anukul Roy IPL 2022 price: Why is Venkatesh Iyer not playing today’s IPL 2022 match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals?

Why Venkatesh Iyer not playing today: Kolkata Knight Riders have made a couple of changes to their Playing XI for this match.

During the 47th match of the ongoing 15th season of the Indian Premier League between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals at the Wankhede Stadium, Kolkata Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer has won the toss and chose to bowl.

“We will bowl first, seems like a used wicket. Considering the dew factor, it helps us in the second innings. We have lost many close games. The chat is always been positive cricket. We need to play fearless cricket,” Iyer told Star Sports at the toss.

Asked to bat first after losing yet another toss, Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju Samson joked about looking to win a toss in the remaining matches of the season. Samson also confirmed a lone change in the form of batter Karun Nair replacing batter Daryl Mitchell in the Playing XI.

“Nothing different today, looking forward to winning some tosses going forward [laughs]. In this format, the margin for error is very small. We have put in a great standard. Nothing much to improve on,” Samson told Star Sports at the toss.

Why is Venkatesh Iyer not playing vs Rajasthan Royals today?

At the eighth position on the points table, Knight Riders’ desperation is quite visible from the two changes that they’ve made this season. After dropping a retained player in spinner Varun Chakravarthy in their last match against Delhi Capitals, KKR have now dropped another retained player in all-rounder Venkatesh Iyer.

While debutant all-rounder Anukul Roy has been included in Venkatesh Iyer’s place, pacer Shivam Mavi has come in for Harshit Rana. While Mavi has been included because of his past record against Royals (12 wickets in seven matches at an economy and strike rate of 7.10 and 13.58 respectively), Shreyas particularly emphasized on getting an extra bowling option with Roy replacing Venkatesh.

ALSO READ: Are Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer related to each other?

In nine innings this season, Venkatesh has managed 132 runs at an average and strike rate of 16.50 and 97.77 respectively. On the bowling front, Venkatesh’s three IPL 2022 overs cost his team 38 runs without any wicket.

Roy, 23, was part of the U-19 World Cup-winning Indian squad under Prithvi Shaw in 2018. Apart from representing Jharkhand in domestic cricket, Roy played a solitary match for Mumbai Indians (vs Chennai Super Kings three years ago) across four seasons. Readers must note that Kolkata bought him for his base price of INR 20 lakh during the mega auction held in Bengaluru earlier this year.