Abhishek Nayar: The man who shaped KKR's IPL 2024-winning Indian core

Like every championship win, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) worked on various aspects to become the IPL 2024 champions and break the 10-year drought. But at the core of their trophy win has been their man management. History proves that only picking the right talent is not good enough, you need to create an environment where they can be impactful.

In that aspect, KKR were miles ahead of other franchises during the IPL 2024. The result of this player-centric management was Sunil Narine providing explosive starts consistently after returning as an opener as he was given a license to fire without worrying about failing. Indian talents were backed with the same enthusiasm by the franchise, resulting in some of the inconsistent or lesser-known players making their mark and playing a title-winning role.

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Varun Chakravarthy had his best season with 21 wickets, 22-year-old Harshit Rana and 26-year-old Vaibhav Arora took 19 and 11 wickets respectively while Ramandeep Singh scored runs at a strike rate of 201.61.

Naturally, the coaching staff led by head coach Chandrakant Pandit and mentor Gautam Gambhir received a lot of praise for the massive turnaround KKR scripted in IPL 2024 after finishing seventh last season.

But one name that has escaped most of the attention is that of assistant coach Abhishek Nayar.

Former India player Nayar has been with KKR since 2018 and has played a big role in grooming the uncapped Indian talents at the franchise. He has worked with players like Rinku Singh, Chakravarthy, Iyer, Arora, Rana, Angkrish Raghuvanshi among others for years and now the hard work has paid off.

During one of the post-match interviews after KKR won the IPL final against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Sunday, Chakravarthy was quick to point out how Nayar had helped Kolkata “build” the Indian core.

To the architect who shaped our Indian core 🙌 pic.twitter.com/9AWkmdzdHs

— KolkataKnightRiders (@KKRiders) May 27, 2024

“All I can think right now is of the person who built this Indian core: Abhishek Nayar. ‘Please come here’,” he said asking the former Mumbai batter to join the conversation.

Venkatesh Iyer, who scored an unbeaten 52 in 26 balls in the final, said Nayar’s hard work should not go unnoticed.

“As Varun mentioned, credit has to go to Abhishek Nayar. You know certain things go unnoticed. I’ll make sure that they don’t go because that guy deserves all the credit in the world for the way he’s been working for this franchise,” Iyer said in the interview.

IPL 2024 | How KKR ended a decade-long wait

Nayar had simple words to express his feelings after KKR won the IPL 2024 but his impact certainly has been massive.

“It means everything. It has taken a very long time. Personally started playing IPL in the first season. It’s taken me 16 years before I got my championship, but I’m really happy for the boys. It’s been 5-6 years. I can’t express how happy I am. Can’t express it, with the big man (Russell) turning up as usual, but it’s the most surreal feeling that I’ve had in a very long time,” Nayar said in a conversation with the broadcasters.

Before coaching the KKR players, Nayar had also mentored Indian cricketers Dinesh Karthik and Rohit Sharma and helped them improve their game.

Nayar’s cricketing record

He played three ODIs for India, making his debut against West Indies at Gros Islet on 3 July 2009. He only got one chance to bat in those three matches and that innings finished on zero not out. He also didn’t get any wickets in three matches but the pace-bowling all-rounder had a highly successful domestic cricket career where he played for Mumbai and Puducherry.

In 103 matches, he took 5749 runs and took 173 wickets. He also scored 2145 runs in 99 List A matches and took 79 wickets. In 95 T20s, he accumulated 1291 runs and scalped 27 wickets.

In IPL, he played for Rajasthan Royals, Punjab Kings and Mumbai Indians.