The Kolkata Knight Riders have roped in Johnson Charles as a replacement for Litton Das for their remaining IPL games.
Bangladesh’s keeper-batter Litton, who had flown back home last week due to a family emergency, has been called up for national duty for an ODI series against Ireland.
The 28-year-old Litton, who was bought by Knights at his base price of Rs 50 lakh at the player auction, featured in only one IPL 2023 game, against Delhi Capitals.
Like Litton, Charles too is a wicketkeeper-batter. While he has been a member of the World T20-winning West Indies teams in 2012 and 2016, he was out of favour for a long time and returned to the Caribbean team only recently.
Precisely, Charles, a righthanded top-order batter, spent six years out of the West Indies team before making a return in October last year and has played seven T20Is since. Earlier this year in March, Charles smashed 118 of 46 balls batting at No.3 in a T20I against South Africa.
Overall, the 34-year-old has represented the West Indies in 41 T20Is, scoring 971 runs.
Though this will be Charles’ first IPL stint, he has played in T20 leagues in the Caribbean, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.
But if Charles has to be in the playing XI, the Knights will have to rethink on their overseas-players strategy. They have preferred playing Afghanistan’s Rahmanullah Gurbaz as the keeper-batter. One assumes England’s Jason Roy is an automatic choice, while the Knights don’t look keen to drop Andre Russell or Sunil Narine, irrespective of their form.
Written with inputs from PTI
