Kolkata Knight Riders were crowned Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 champions under the captaincy of Indian cricket team batter Shreyas Iyer. However, the franchise decided to not retain him ahead of the mega auction and instead, they went with Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, and Varun Chakravarthy along with Harshit Rana and Ramandeep Singh. Shreyas was eventually bought for Punjab Kings for Rs. 26.75 crores and he will be captaining them in IPL 2025. In a recent interaction, Shreyas opened up about the retention snub and how disappointed he felt about it.

“Certainly, I had a fantastic time winning the championship at KKR. The fan following was outstanding, they were electrifying in the stadium and I loved every moment I spent there. So obviously, we had a conversation straight after the IPL championship. But for a few months, there was a layover and no concrete effort in having a retention talk. I was perplexed about what’s happening. So, because of a lack of communication, we came to a situation where we parted ways, mutually. And that’s the long and short of it,” Shreyas said in an interaction with Indian Express.

“Yes, obviously disappointed, because when you don’t have a certain line of communication and if you get to know things one week prior to the retention date, then obviously something is lacking over there. So I had to take a call. Whatever is written is supposed to happen. But other than that, I would just like to say that the time I spent over there with Shah Rukh Sir, the family, all of them, was phenomenal. And obviously, winning the championship was probably an integral part of my life,” Shreyas added.

Shreyas was a part of Delhi Capitals and he even captained the franchise from 2018 to 2020.