The auction for the Indian Premier League 2026 will take place on 16 December. Andre Russell’s name will also be among the players on whom bidding will be done on this day. Russell, who has been the poster boy of Kolkata Knight Riders for many years, has been released by KKR. This was the most surprising thing in the retention of all the teams. Former Indian cricketer Mohammad Kaif believes that the reason behind this is the head coach of KKR, who wants to form his new team.

While talking about retention on YouTube channel, Mohammad Kaif alleged that Abhishek Nair was the direct reason for KKR releasing Andre Russell. Let us tell you that the Kolkata team has also made many changes in its coaching department before IPL 2026. Abhishek was elected head coach and Shane Watson was made assistant coach. Tim Saudi has been appointed bowling coach.

what did mohammed kaif say

Kaif said, “It is not right to release Russell. You bought him for Rs 12 crore and it was not a big amount for a player like him. Only one player like him comes in this era. Yes, he was not in form, but later he also scored runs. But as coaches change, they bring some changes. I think it was a big decision.”

Kaif further said, “You can say that Russell was not at his peak yet, but I think this is a format, especially in IPL, where experienced players perform well and there are many examples of this. I think the direct answer to his release is Abhishek Nair. He wants to build his own team now. But it was a surprising decision.”

Andre Russell’s IPL career

Many people may think that Andre Russell has been playing for KKR since the beginning in IPL. Actually he had become a poster boy of the KKR team, although it was not so. He started his IPL career by playing in Delhi Capitals. He was a part of Delhi in 2012 and 2013, in 2014 KKR included him in their team and then he played for the same team till 2025.

Andre Russell has played a total of 140 matches in IPL, in which he has scored 2651 runs. Russell has scored 12 half-centuries in IPL. Russell has taken a total of 123 wickets in IPL. It will be interesting to see which team Andre Russell joins in the upcoming IPL season, or whether he will return to KKR. Let us tell you that KKR has the biggest purse in the IPL auction.

Abhishek Nair will be the head coach of Kolkata Knight Riders in the next season i.e. IPL 2026. Abhishek has already been associated with the Kolkata Knight Riders team for five years, but this will be the first time that he will play the role of head coach of an IPL team. Meanwhile, Mumbai Indians have created a sensation on social media by making a mysterious post.

Mysterious post of Mumbai Indians

On the afternoon of October 30, Kolkata Knight Riders confirmed through social media that Abhishek Nair will now be the head coach of the KKR team. Meanwhile, Mumbai Indians also shared a mysterious post, in which Rohit Sharma’s picture has been shared. More than the picture of Rohit Sharma, the caption of the post has created a ruckus.

Mumbai Indians wrote in the caption of their post, “The sun will rise again tomorrow, this is confirmed. But it is not only difficult but impossible at night.” Actually the English word for night is ‘Night’, but MI has written it as ‘Knight’ in its post. Just like it is written in ‘Kolkata Knight Riders’.

ye toh confirm hai, but at (K)night… It’s not only difficult, it’s impossible! pic.twitter.com/E5yH3abB4g

— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) October 30, 2025

Rohit Sharma’s trade!

Abhishek Nair becoming the head coach of KKR and this post of Mumbai Indians right after that can be seen as a taunt. Actually Abhishek Nair and Rohit Sharma are good friends. Just a few days ago, Rohit was seen training with Nair.

A fan has raised the possibility that Mumbai Indians may trade Rohit Sharma with KKR. Some fans have already started congratulating the Kolkata Knight Riders team. However, no statement has come in this regard.

Let us tell you that before IPL 2024, the captaincy of Mumbai Indians was snatched from Rohit Sharma and handed over to Hardik Pandya. Claims are also being made on social media that after losing the captaincy, Rohit may also decide to leave MI.

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Big change in KKR management, Abhishek Nair appointed new head coach before IPL 2026

Abhishek Nair has been appointed the head coach of Kolkata Knight Riders, a few weeks before the IPL 2026 auction. He will replace Chandrakant Pandit, who remained the head coach of KKR for three consecutive seasons. In the same year, Chandrakant had resigned from the post of head coach of KKR, after which the franchise was looking for a new coach. Abhishek is returning to the Kolkata team, because he has already been a part of the KKR support staff for five years.

42 year old Abhishek Nair is known for his unique coaching style. Nair was not a part of the KKR management in 2025, but at the time of IPL 2025, he was playing the role of assistant coach of the Indian cricket team. Let us remind you that recently Rohit Sharma had trained with Abhishek Nair. Nair said that Rohit can lose more weight in the next months. KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer have also been training under Nair.

Abhishek Nair has also done scouting for KKR before this. Nair has made a major contribution in enhancing the talent of youth like Rinku Singh and Harshit Rana. After stepping down from the post of assistant coach of the Indian team this year, Abhishek Nair was the head coach of UP Warriors in WPL 2025. Unfortunately, the UP team could win only 3 out of 8 matches and remained at the bottom position in the table.

The performance of Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2025 was very disappointing. It had registered only 5 wins in the season, due to which it remained eighth in the table. This performance was disappointing also because KKR was coming after winning the IPL 2024 title. Despite being the defending champions, Kolkata could not even come close to qualifying for the playoffs.

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After batting coach Abhishek Nair and Strength-Conditioning Coach Soham Desai, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has fired another old employee from the job. According to the news agency PTI, Rajiv Kumar, who has been massaging Indian players for a long time, has been fired. In the era of Gautam Gambhir, the period of replacement of support staff continues. Let me tell you that Rajiv was associated with Team India for more than a decade, he was also with the team on the tour of England but now he has not been given a new contract. This is the third time in the last 4 months when a staff member has been fired.

According to the report, the person present in an influential post in the board believes that the benefits of the staff staying with the team for a long time are less profitable. It has been an ideology that when the support staff is associated with the team for a long time, it develops a level of spontaneity with the players, which is not good for the team.

Ever since Gautam Gambhir has taken the post of head coach in place of Rahul Dravid, since then there has been a period of change in Team India. Batting coach Abhishek Nair has been evacuated, while fielding coach T Dileep was also fired by BCCI. However, he was called back to the England Tour. It is not yet clear whether T Dileep will continue to hold the post of Fielding Coach in the Asia Cup 2025.

Current Member in Indian Support Staff

In the Indian Support Staff, Gautam Gambhir is sitting on the post of Head Coach. Along with Ryan Ten Doshe assistant coach, fielding coaching is also done. Sitanshu Kotak Batting, while Morne Morkel is a bowling coach. Raghavendra Dwivedi is a throdow specialist.

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Rohit Sharma, who has said goodbye to T20 and Test format, is now preparing for ODI returns. It is being speculated that Rohit may return to the ODI series against Australia in October. Before that, he has taken help from Abhishek Nair to fix his preparations. Abhishek Nair is the same person who helped Rohit Sharma’s career on the right track about 14 years ago.

Just a few days ago, the video of Rohit Sharma returning from vacation in the United Kingdom went viral. Seeing that video, people started trolling Rohit fiercely for obesity. But now Rohit Sharma, the current captain of the Indian ODI team, has updated the story on Instagram himself, in which he is seen practicing with Abhishek Nair in the gym. This shows that he has become serious about his fitness and return to the field.

Abhishek Nair was expelled from the post of assistant coach in the Indian team in April this year. After that he has been appointed the head coach of the UP Warriors team in the Women’s Premier League. After being expelled from Team India, Abhishek also joined the KKR team in mid -2025. As far as Rohit Sharma and Abhishek Sharma are concerned, they have played together before and there is a very good friendship between the two.

Rohit Sharma and Abhishek Nayar are working on fitness for the 2027 world cup.

We are so back pic.twitter.com/ECIPFCYCFV

– (@jod_insane) August 12, 2025

Abhishek has given training to Rohit Sharma before

Abhishek Nair also trained Rohit Sharma about 14 years ago. It is a matter of those days when Rohit was not selected in the 2011 World Cup squad. In those days, Abhishek Nair had helped Rohit a lot in improving fitness and skill sets. Abhishek himself has told that the ground was being renewed in those days, then he had done Rohit to dig the soil and work like a construction worker. Abhishek Nair was pushing Rohit Sharma as much as possible. He had done ‘Hitman’ work like cutting wood and lifting tires.

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Just a few weeks ago, Abhishek Nair was expelled from the post of Assistant Coach by BCCI. Nair has now become the new head coach of the UP Warriors team in the Women’s Premier League (WPL). Nair has replaced John Lewis in this post, who had been the head coach of UP franchise for the last three seasons. The UP Warriors team failed to go to the playoffs of both the last two seasons. Nair could not play much international cricket for India, but is counted among the veterans of Mumbai in domestic cricket.

During the talks with ESPN Cricinfo, COO and Director of Cricket of UP Warriors said during the talks with ESPN Cricinfo, “Abhishek Nair is made the head coach of UP Warriors, it is as if his under UP team will touch new heights. Abhishek has been part of 3 champion teams within the last 18 months, in which he has played different characters.” He hoped that the fearless team of Abhishek Nair’s Under UP Warriors will definitely do some wonders in the next season.

Gautam Gambhir has been assistant

Gautam Gambhir became the head coach of the Indian cricket team after the 2024 T20 World Cup. Shortly thereafter, Abhishek Nair was appointed as an assistant coach in Team India. He was not yet completed even a year that became an assistant coach of Gautam Gambhir that he was expelled from the post of Assistant Coach in April 2024.

According to the news, there were many reasons for the removal of Nair. The first is that the Indian Test team had lost the series by performing unnecessarily against Australia and New Zealand. There was also speculation that he had an argument with a senior player.

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Abhishek nayar kkr ipl 2025: Abhishek Nair has once again joined Kolkata Knight Riders. KKR has shared a post on social media about Nair between IPL 2025. Recently there was news about Nair that he has been removed from the post of Assistant Coach by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. But the BCCI did not give a statement on this. However, Abhishek Nair has now joined KKR.

KKR shared the post on X on Saturday evening. The team said that Abhishek Nair has returned. He shared Nair’s photo and wrote in the caption, “Welcome home Abhishek Nair” he has been a part of the Kolkata team before. Abhishek Nair was with KKR from 2018 to 2024. He was working as an assistant coach. KKR won the IPL title in 2024. Nair was considered an important role in this.

Welcome back home, @abhisheknayar1 pic.twitter.com/iwjqtnawxa

– kolkataknightriders (@kkriders) April 19, 2025

update in progress…

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Abhishek nayar team india: The Board of Control for Cricket in India is moving towards changing the support staff of Team India. According to a report, the team of head coach Gautam Gambhir can be small. Abhishek Nair, T Dileep and Soham Desai can be given a break. Now a big update has been received on this matter. Information has been received about why these members of BCCI Support Staff are trying to remove these members.

According to an IANS news, some members of the board say that there is no point in keeping so many people in the support staff. Team India had to face defeat in the Test series in Australia. After this, questions started arising. That is why it cannot be called to dismiss it. This is an initiative to organize the support staff. With this, Abhishek Nair, T Dileep or Desai cannot be called a good or bad coach.

Team India’s coaching staff may have a big change –

According to reports, Adrian Le Rocks can be given a chance instead of Soham Desai. Le Rocks is currently part of the Punjab Kings team of IPL 2025. He is a strength and conditioning coach. He was with Kolkata Knight Riders from 2008 to 2019. Earlier, he has worked in the same role with the Indian team from 2002 to 2003. Abhishek Nair and Dileep’s responsibilities can be fully batting coach Sitanshu Kotak and Assistant Coach Ryan Ten Doshet. Ten Doshet was a fielding coach in Kolkata Knight Riders.

Questions arose after defeat in Australia tour –

Team India suffered a bad defeat on Australia tour. The Border-Gavaskar series was not good for the entire team including captain Rohit Sharma. After this series, questions were raised on Team India. India’s coaching staff was also under question.

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Bcci terminated abhishek nayar: A surprising news related to the Indian cricket team has come out. Actually, BCCI has taken action on a member of the team of head coach Gautam Gambhir. Eliminating suspense, let us tell you that Assistant Coach Abhishek Nair has been removed. However, the reason behind this is not clearly revealed. According to media reports, the BCCI had already told Abhishek Nair about the removal of the associate staff.

The news agency PTI quoted a BCCI source as saying in its report, “India’s recent defeat in Test cricket (against New Zealand and Australia) was churning over the allied staff, but in the BCCI, it is also felt that Nair became a scope of sacrifice in the fight between an important member of the support staff and a senior star player.”

These two veterans also decide to be out

Fielding coaches T Dilip and Strength and Conditioning Coach Soham Desai are also scheduled to be out after completing more than three years in their respective positions, as the BCCI’s new standard operation process (SOP) has limited the tenure of the collaborative staff to three years.

Please tell that Abhishek Nair became the assistant coach of Team India about 9 months ago. Head coach Gautam Gambhir himself advocated him. According to the report, there was a plan to remove Nair since Sitanshu Kotak was included in the Indian team’s associate staff as a batting coach.

A senior BCCI source told PTI on the condition of anonymity, the BCCI had held a review meeting just after the Australia tour, which was present, including Secretary Devjit Saikia and Vice President Rajiv Shukla, top officials of the board, important members associated with the Indian team and national selectors. In this meeting, a senior member from the collaborative staff expressed apprehension about Nair’s role and said that his presence is adversely affecting the dressing room. The BCCI did not take immediate action, but they brought Kotak. This was a way to edge Nair during the Champions Trophy.