IPL 2024: Kolkata Knight Riders name Dushmantha Chameera as replacement for Gus Atkinson

An statement issued by IPL said, "Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have named Dushmantha Chameera as a replacement for England pacer Gus Atkinson for the upcoming edition of the TATA Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024."

Chameera will join KKR at a reserve price of Rs 50 Lakh. The Sri Lankan speedster, who is known for his pace, and can trouble the batters with his swing and seam movements, was a part of Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2018 and 2021 IPL seasons, respectively. He represented Lucknow Super Giants in the 2022 season, where he picked up nine wickets from 12 matches.

Atkinson, who has taken 17 wickets in nine ODIs and three T20Is across England, was bought for Rs 1 crore by KKR in the IPL 2024 auction held in Dubai last year. The 26-year-old made his international debut just last year and gathered some headlines for his pace.

Chameera has played 12 Tests, 52 ODIs and 55 T20Is for Sri Lanka, having taken 32, 56 and 55 wickets respectively across these formats. He made his international debut in 2015.

With star overseas players like Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Jason Roy, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine and Mitchell Starc available along with a strong Indian core in Nitish Rana, skipper Shreyas Iyer, Rinku Singh, Venkatesh Iyer and Varun Charkavarthy, KKR will be aiming to do well in IPL 2024. Last season, they finished seventh with six wins and eight losses. 12 points were not enough to earn them a spot in playoffs.

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) IPL 2024 squad: Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Shreyas Iyer, Jason Roy, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb Ur Rehman, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain. (ANI)