Dinesh Karthik names player from KKR squad who is 3 hours early for 7 pm practice session

Former Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain Dinesh Karthik is confident their latest recruit and veteran spinner Harbhajan Singh will do a great job for them in IPL 2021. Harbhajan was bought by the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) when his name popped up for grabs for the second time in the accelerated edition of the auction. The Harbhajan Singh IPL 2021 base price was ₹2 crore and the two-time IPL champions acquired the services of the spinner at the same price as they were the only side to bid for him.

Harbhajan Singh IPL 2021: Dinesh Karthik confident about Bhajji's performances in IPL 2021

During one of KKR's practice matches at DY Patil Stadium, Karthik said that according to him, picking Harbhajan wasn’t easy considering that he has been around for so long. However, he added that the amount of interest and intensity Bhajji has shown in the last one week is just fabulous. Karthik revealed that the off-spinner has been consistently coming to practise sessions early, much ahead of all other players. The KKR wicketkeeper reckoned from whatever little he seen of Harbhajan this week, he seems like a different man now.

Karthik further disclosed that even in a practice game that starts at 7 PM, he had come at 4 PM and was working on his batting. The Tamil Nadu batsman added that Bhajji then bowled to Shakib Al Hasan and Eoin Morgan and did his stretching again before getting into the practice game.

Karthik opined that Harbhajan would bowl in a match and also field all 20 overs and that's about as much as one can ask for from a man of his stature. According to Karthik, for Harbhajan, to show this kind of interest at this stage of his career despite achieving everything, speaks volumes of him as a character. Karthik reckoned that he is sure that the 40-year old will do a great job for KKR.

KKR IPL 2021 schedule: Men in Purple to take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in first IPL 2021 game

According to the KKR IPL 2021 schedule, the KKR team 2021 will take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in their opening match of IPL 2021 on Sunday, April 11 in Chennai. The KKR vs SRH game will get underway at 7:30 PM (IST). The KKR team 2021 will play their first three matches in Chennai, followed by two in Mumbai, four in Ahmedabad and the final five games in Bengaluru.

KKR squad

KKR players retained

Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik, Nitish Rana, Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Rahul Tripathi, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Pat Cummins, Prasidh Krishna, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Tim Seifert.

KKR players bought at IPL 2021 auction

Harbhajan Singh (₹2 crore), Shakib-al-Hasan (₹3.2 crore),  Ben Cutting (₹75 lakh), Karun Nair (₹50 lakh), Pawan Negi (₹50 lakh), Sheldon Jackson (₹20 lakh), Venkatesh Iyer (₹20 lakh) and Vaibhav Arora (₹20 lakh).

SOURCE: PTI