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Former batting coach Abhishek Nayar has rejoined Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2025 after his reported sacking by the BCCI.
Abhishek Nayar. (PC: KKRiders/X)
Former batting coach Abhishek Nayar has returned to the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) set-up in the middle of IPL 2025. The defending champions took to social media to post his photo in the official kit, welcoming him back to ‘home’, only days after his reported sacking from the Indian men’s team.
This is an interesting development, to say the least. On Thursday (April 17), reports started to do the rounds that he, alongside two other members of the India support staff — fielding coach T Dilip and strength and conditioning coach Soham Desai — were let go of.
The reasons cited were India’s back-to-back Test series losses against New Zealand and Australia that ended their World Test Championship final hopes. However, the BCCI has not confirmed or denied it. The fact that KKR have announced it, though, should all but confirm the reports.
Nayar is a well-respected figure at the club. A lot of KKR players have cited his help for improving their game. For example, Varun Chakaravarthy made sure to mention his name as a helping hand for domestic cricketers in the team after their title win, while batter Angkrish Raghuvanshi sees him as a family member, having spent most of his formative cricketing years under him and even staying at his Mumbai home.
KKR would probably be happy to have him back, given how, after his departure eight months ago, they didn’t sign any other batting coach. During the Test series, his role came under immense scrutiny due to the regular failures of Indian batters. But Nayar worked with the Indian team through not just the Test series but also in the home series triumphs against England and the 2025 Champions Trophy win.
Different reports have cited a variety of behind-the-scenes reasons for his departure from the Indian team.
“While India’s recent Test debacles (against New Zealand and Australia) has led to the churning but there is also a feeling in the BCCI that Nayar became a scapegoat in the turf war between an important member of the support staff and a senior star player,” a BCCI source told PTI.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Indian board reacts to this development.
