Shreyas Iyer might miss the first half of the Indian T20 League 2023

The 15th edition of the Indian T20 League is starting on 31 March. All the teams have started preparing for the tournament. For this new season, all the teams have also started their training camp ahead of this cricket festival. However, before this, a two-time league winner Kolkata might face some serious problems heading for this new season as the skipper of the side Shreyas Iyer who suffered a back injury in the fourth test of the BGT series, is likely to miss the first half of league tournament.

Due to this injury, Iyer is also considered doubtful to play in the three ODI series against Australia starting on 17 March. At the same time, it is also being said that it is difficult to say whether he can be fully fit before the upcoming season of the Indian T20 League.

The 28-year-old prolific Indian batter has played 101 matches in the league scoring 2776 runs with an average strike rate of 31.55 and 125.38 with the highest score of 96. However, Iyer ended the year 2022 as the third-highest run-getter across formats in International cricket by featuring in 39 matches, scoring 1609 runs with an average of 48.75.

Iyer's injury has become a big problem for Kolkata seeing his recent performance and the way he bats in the middle order might create a big problem for the side. His numbers are staggering for Kolkata. If Iyer somehow misses this season for Kolkata, then who are these three players who can handle the captaincy?

Tim Southee

Black Caps test skipper Tim Southee may take over the responsibility to lead Kolkata under his captaincy NZ recently won two nail-biter contests in test matches one against England and the other against Sri Lanka. He also has experience captaining the Kiwi team. He has captained New Zealand on several occasions in place of the regular captain. 34-year-old Southee has a lot of experience playing for different teams in the Indian T20 League. He has played a total of 52 matches in this league so far. During this, he has taken 45 wickets in his name. He can be a good option as the captain of Kolkata in place of Iyer.

Andre Russell

West Indies explosive all-rounder Andre Russell can also take over the captaincy of Kolkata if Iyer does not recover on time. Russell has been Kolkata's most experienced and reliable player. He has been associated with the team for a long time. Russell loves to create a lot of noise from his bat when he strikes the ball out of the stadium as well as he has won many matches for Kolkata with his bowling. If Russell is given the captaincy in place of Iyer, then there should be no surprise in it. Russell has played a total of 98 matches in the Indian T20 League so far, in which he scored 2035 runs and took 89 wickets.

Nitish Rana

Apart from this, Nitish Rana is also a very good option for captaincy for Kolkata. The left-handed batter Rana has also been playing for the side for a long time. He also has captaincy experience in domestic cricket. Being associated with Kolkata for a long time, he also has a good understanding of the team. He has so far scored 2181 runs in 91 matches in this league.

KKR Squad -

Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Anukul Roy, Rinku Singh, N. Jagadeesan, Vaibhav Arora, Suyash Sharma, David Wiese, Kulwant Khejroliya, Litton Das, Mandeep Singh, Shakib Al Hasan.