As Mitchell Starc gets ready to grace the IPL after staying away from the tournament for eight seasons, he will have to shoulder a big responsibility on return, being the bowling spearhead of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).

The left-arm Australia pacer is the costliest buy ever in the IPL as the Knights roped him in for Rs 24.75 crore during the auction in Dubai last December and so he also has to do justice to his price tag.

However, KKR mentor Gautam Gambhir believes that no matter how much the Knights have had to shell out for Starc, that will not put the speedster under any kind of pressure in the upcoming edition of the IPL.

According to Gambhir — the former captain — Starc is the “X-factor” of the Knight Riders and should be having an impact on the IPL, just as he has had on international cricket.

“I had already said on the auction table that he (Starc) is an X-factor and I’m sure he’s going to deliver. And there’s no such pressure of a price tag.

“I hope that what he has done in international cricket, he can do the same for KKR,” Gambhir said at the Calcutta airport, upon his arrival here on Thursday evening.

Thirty-four wickets from 27 appearances at an economy rate of 7.17 reflect Starc’s overall performance in the IPL. He has only featured in the
tournament’s 2014 (14 games) and 2015 (13 games) editions. The Knights had taken him at the 2018 auction as well, but the Australian was ruled out due to a stress fracture in his right leg.

With barely a week remaining for the start of this season’s IPL, the Rinku Singhs will be getting down to business from Friday when they begin with their camp at Eden Gardens. The Knights begin their IPL campaign on March 23 against the Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Eden, a day after the competition begins.

Back “home”, Gambhir, too, is quite optimistic of the Knights turning things around. “KKR is not a franchise, it’s an emotion for me,” the former captain, under whose leadership the team won the trophy twice (in 2012 and 2014), said amid “GG... GG...” chants by almost a hundred fans that had assembled at the airport.

“I hope I live up to the expectation, and I’m sure we’ll try and make Calcutta proud and that’s what we are going to do.”