IPL 2024: Kolkata Knight Riders Rope In Dushmantha Chameera As Gus Atkinson’s Replacement

Dushmantha Chameera was a part of the Lucknow Super Giants in previous season of IPL. He will join KKR at a reserve price of Rs 50 Lakh.

Kolkata: Two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders have named Dushmantha Chameera as a replacement for Gus Atkinson for the upcoming Indian Premier League on Monday, which is set to start next month. The development comes barely a month before the start of the new season. Although there has been no official announcement about IPL 2024 start date, March 22 is a tentative date for the campaign opener. It is also believed that IPL 2024 will be played in two phases due to general elections.

As far as the Sri Lankan speedster is concerned, Chameera joins KKR at his base price of Rs 50 lakh. Known for his pace, Chameera also has the potential to trouble the batters with his swing and seam movements, which would be beneficial for the KKR setup. His addition makes KKR’s overseas pace attack stronger which also consists of World Champion Mitchell Starc.

Earlier, Chameera was a part of Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2018 and 2021 IPL seasons, respectively. He represented Lucknow Super Giants in the 2022 season, where he picked up nine wickets from 12 matches.

England players’ availability in IPL 2024 was always in question due to ECB’s programme for the T20 World Cup in June. While there is no concrete news about Atkinson’s unavailability, it is likely that he is a part of ECB’s T20 World Cup programme for which they want the pacer to be in best shape.

In the auction last year, Atkinson was picked up by KKR at his base price of Rs 1 crore. Chameera didn’t found any takers back then. The Sri Lankan, who was spent most of 2023 on sidelines due to a shoulder injury, is back in action and most recently featured in the ILT20 in UAE. He made his international comeback in the ongoing white-ball series against Afghanistan.

KKR made headlines when they shelled out Rs 24.75 crore for Starc in the auction, making him the costliest player in IPL. They also roped in Chetan Sakariya, bolstering their pace attack. The other players bought by KKR in the auction are KS Bharat (Rs 50 lakh), Angkrish Raghuvanshi (Rs 20 lakh), Ramandeep Singh (Rs 20 lakh), Sherfane Rutherford (Rs 1.5 crore), Manish Pandey (Rs 50 lakh), Mujeeb Ur Rahman (Rs 2 crore) and Sakib Hussain (Rs 20 lakh).

KKR’s Updated Squad For IPL 2024: Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Shreyas Iyer (c), Jason Roy, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain.