Flop Season for the Kolkatta Knight Riders Stars in 2022

Some stars in the previous season shone with flying colours; however, they have failed to perform this season. These players played brilliantly in the last season, leaving everyone completely stunned. Consequently, everyone had huge expectations from these players this season. Their franchises showed massive faith in these players to have them in the squad. However, they have failed to justify their reputation with their performance, and the faith team showed in them. Let us look at three of these IPL 2021 stars who have flopped in this league edition.

Venkatesh Iyer

Last year, it took Venkatesh Iyer half a season to make his IPL debut and emerge as one of the cornerstones of KKR's extraordinary journey to the final. He was one of the four retained players by the franchise ahead of the mega auction. Meanwhile, he also made his much-anticipated debut for team India.

Venkatesh Iyer, who blazed through the numbers last year, is suffering for runs this year. He has just scored 132 runs in nine games, a far cry from his 370 runs in ten games last year. In his nine innings so far, Venkatesh Iyer has scored 132 runs with an average of 16.50 and a terrible strike rate of 97.5. He's batted eight times and has gone past 20 only once. Venkatesh has also been under-bowled, having bowled only three overs and gone wicketless. In the first five matches, the all-rounder opened the innings but failed to give a solid start to the team. Despite being a retained player, it isn't very reassuring to see the all-rounder underperforming this season. 

Varun Chakravarthy

The 2020 season of IPL proved to be a breakthrough year for Varun Chakravarthy's career. He played 13 matches to take 17 wickets, with a magnificent economy rate of 6.84. He further solidified himself as India's next spin wizard the following season. The numbers again were phenomenal. He took 18 wickets in 17 matches at an economy of 6.58. The number of wickets may seem less, but the batters couldn't read him and thus stopped taking risks against him. Thus, Varun Chakravarthy emerged as a very efficient bowler for the franchise.

Due to his brilliant performance the previous season, the right-arm leg-break bowler was retained by KKR for Rs 8 crore. But the mystery spinner from Tamil Nadu has failed to deliver this season so far. In fact, in the match against SRH, which the team lost, Chakravarthy conceded 45 runs in the three overs he bowled. Against Delhi Capitals, too, Chakravarthy conceded 44 runs in four overs. In the eight matches he has played so far, Chakravarthy could take only four wickets with an average of 61.75. His economy rate has also been 8.30. 

Aaron Finch

Aaron Finch, the World Cup-winning captain for Australia, also ranks due to his poor performance this season. Finch was always looked up to as an experienced player. The experience he holds in international cricket is significant. Finch is highly reputed as one of the most destructive T20 batters globally. He was bought at 1.50 crore in the mega auction by Kolkatta Knight Riders. However, with his performance in the season till now, he has failed to justify his reputation.

Aaron Finch has scored 86 runs in 5 matches in IPL 2022 at an average of 17.20. Finch has scored only one half-century this season. He has crossed the score of 15 runs only once this season. It will be tough for Aaron Finch to make a place in the team's playing XI in the coming matches. Finch has played a total of 92 games in his IPL career so far, in which he has scored a total of 2091 runs while batting at a strike rate of 128.20, which includes 15 half-centuries.