Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) has called the 16-year-old Jammu and Kashmir pacer Mujtaba Yousuf for the trials.
Just around a week before the IPL 2019 opening match, KKR lost two young cricketers for the entire season due to their injuries. The 19-year-old pace bowler Kamlesh Nagarkoti has the back injury while the 20-year-old all-rounder Shivam Mavi is suffering from the back stress fracture.
Both those young cricketers joined KKR from 2018 season. In 2018 IPL Auction, KKR bought Kamlesh Nagarkoti for INR 3.2 crore while they bought Shivam Mavi for INR 3 crore.
Meanwhile, KKR has already included the 27-year-old pacer Sandeep Warrier as a replacement of Kamlesh Nagarkoti. Now, the franchise is searching for the replacement of Shivam Mavi, and that’s why they have called Mujtaba Yousuf for the trials on this Sunday (17th March).
Who is Mujtaba Yousuf?
The 16-year-old Mujtaba Yousuf is a left-arm pacer. He lives in South Kashmir’s Bijbehara town (Anantnag district).
In the recent youth cricket season, the pace bowler showed some decent performances. Those performances helped him to make T20 debut in this year. Earlier, he also attended the National Cricket Academy (NCA) camps for a couple of times.
During the recently concluded 2018/19 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he made T20 debut for his state cricket association Jammu and Kashmir. He played six matches in that tournament and picked up three wickets. Though he didn’t achieve much success in that tournament, the left-arm seamer impressed very much with his bowling skills. Now, KKR has called him for the trial.
The young pacer recently told Sportskeeda, “I was asked to join the camp and I already reached here. There are some more boys here for the trial camp.”
KKR is getting ready for the new season
In the past, KKR won two IPL trophies, both under Gautam Gambhir’s captaincy (2012 and 2014). In the last three years, they qualified for the playoffs in every season, but then they failed to reach the final of the tournament.
Since the last season, KKR is playing under a new captain – Dinesh Karthik. In the previous season (IPL 2018), Dinesh Karthik-led side KKR performed very positively. However, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) finally ended their IPL 2018 journey after beating them by 14 runs in the Qualifier 2.
Now, KKR will begin their IPL 2019 journey on 24th March against SRH at Eden Gardens (Kolkata). Meanwhile, the IPL 2019 will officially start one day earlier (23rd March) when the defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) will meet at MA Chidambaram Stadium (Chennai).