Former India player Sunil Gavaskar wants Rahmanullah Gurbaz to play in the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) playing XI in IPL 2024. Mitchell Starc, Andre Russell and Sunil Narine are likely to be three of the four overseas players in the Knight Riders’ first-choice XI as well. Gurbaz might compete with Jason Roy for the last overseas position as well.

On Star Sports, Gavaskar said: “I have liked Gurbaz’s batting a lot based on whatever I have seen. He is extremely aggressive, and his batting is like a slight copy of MS Dhoni, and that is why I probably like it. When the World Cup ended, after that, the job he did, he gave money to the people sleeping on the footpath. For doing that, he has to definitely be in the team for me.”

However, Gurbaz scored 227 runs which came at an underwhelming average of 20.64 in 11 innings in IPL 2023. He scored only two half-centuries with a swashbuckling 81-run knock off 39 balls against the Gujarat Titans at the Eden Gardens being his best effort as well. Sunil Gavaskar also shared his thoughts on the Kolkata Knight Riders’ playoff qualification prospects with their Indian batting unit Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh and Venkatesh Iyer as well.

“Not going to be easy (playoff qualification). They have to because they have got the experience, not only of playing on those kinds of pitches, of having played in the IPL for a while. I think that experience does come in very handy because you know what the pressure is and you know how to handle it. All these four players have done it exceptionally well. Rinku Singh, in particular, in the last year or so has been tremendous,” Sunil Gavaskar concluded.