England opener Jason Roy has opted out of the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) with Phil Salt replacing him in Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). England batter Salt is currently the opener of the national team in the T20 set up. The franchise has secured Salt’s services for his base price of INR 1.5 crore.
However, Roy pulling out is certainly a blow for KKR as he was one of the star batters for them last year having amassed 285 runs in just eight innings at a strike-rate of 151.59 with two half-centuries to his name. Nevertheless, Phil Salt too is a swashbuckling batter and fared decently for the Delhi Capitals last season who surprisingly released him.
He scored 218 runs in nine innings at a strike-rate of 163.9 and also crossed the 50-run mark twice in IPL 2023. But in IPL auction for this season, he went unsold with no team showing interest in him. Also, his twin centuries in the T20I format against the West Indies in the Caribbean came a few days after the IPL auction in December 2023.
The five-match series was a blockbuster for Salt as he tallied 331 runs at a strike-rate of 185.95 showcasing what franchises missed by not picking him at the auction. As for his T20 career, Salt has so far amassed 5308 runs in 221 innings at an average of 25.89 and a strike-rate of 153.41.
The batter now has a realistic chance of being a certain starter for KKR at the top of the order with only Rahmanullah Gurbaz being the other overseas opener in the squad. The other overseas players in the KKR squad are Sherfane Rutherford, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera and Mujeeb Ur Rahman.

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Looking at this combination, there is every chance of Salt playing all the matches of IPL 2024 for KKR this season if he continues to score runs at fair clip like he does in other T20 leagues. Also, it will be interesting to see if KKR will prefer him or Gurbaz to start with this season.
Coming back to Roy, this is the third time that he has pulled out of the IPL at the last moment. He had withdrawn from the cash-rich league ahead of IPL 2020 due to personal reasons when Delhi Capitals had picked him. Gujarat Titans had secured his services for IPL 2022 but he missed the season having taken an indefinite break from the game.
Meanwhile, KKR will see their captain Shreyas Iyer returning this season who missed out due to injury in IPL 2023. They are scheduled to face Sunrisers Hyderabad in their opening game of the season on March 13 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
KKR squad for IPL 2024 without Jason Roy
Shreyas Iyer(c), Nitish Rana, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Venkatesh Iyer, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Anukul Roy, Rinku Singh, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Vaibhav Arora, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain, Phil Salt