Samira Vishwas
Tezzbuzz|26-03-2026
Before IPL 2026, another major change has been seen in the team of Kolkata Knight Riders. Injured Harshit Rana was out of the entire season. In such a situation, the team has included experienced fast bowler Navdeep Saini in his place. KKR has continuously tried to strengthen its squad through second replacement.
Even before the start of IPL 2026, Kolkata Knight Riders suffered a major setback.
The team’s star fast bowler Harshit Rana was out of this season due to injury. Due to which the franchise has included Navdeep Saini in the team as his replacement on Wednesday (25 March).Harshit Rana was retained by KKR for Rs 4 crore before the IPL 2025 mega auction, but he will not be able to play for the team this time. He suffered an injury during the warm-up match of the T20 World Cup 2026 against South Africa in February, due to which he has been ruled out of the entire tournament.
33-year-old Navdeep Saini has played 2 Tests, 8 ODIs and 11 T20 International matches for the Indian team. He represents Delhi in domestic cricket and has previously played for Rajasthan Royals in the 2022 and 2023 seasons and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2019 to 2021 seasons in the IPL.
Talking about his IPL career, Saini has taken 23 wickets in 32 matches so far. KKR has included him in their team for Rs 75 lakh and he will be expected to perform better this season.
It is noteworthy that this is the second replacement of KKR before IPL 2026. Earlier, the team had included Saurabh Dubey in the squad in place of Akash Deep.
In such a situation, the team management is constantly busy balancing its squad.
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