Brendon McCullum speaks on KKR's plans for mega auction, finding back up for Andre Russell

(Source: Twitter)

Former New Zealand captain and current head coach of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) Brendon McCullum spoke at length about how his franchise is going to go about at the IPL 2022 mega auction that is going to take place on February 12 and 13 in Bengaluru. 

Speaking at KKR's YouTube channel, McCullum said that the franchise is looking to build a team which has mixture of cultures, ethnicities and combine them with some stars. He also said that KKR has been a franchise which looks for great character and personalities and numbers do not necessarily make for great players. 

He said, "We put a lot of weight on personalities and characters. You have got some players who have got wonderful numbers but they may not have won titles. Then there are players whose numbers are not quite as strong as others but you know they can be an important part of your squad. You try and obviously mix the blend of mixture of personalities, mixture of cultures, mixture of ethnicities, and you try and bring in a mixture of star players as well. Ultimately, you got to have vision for that to try and ensure you have right people sitting at the right seat and the bus is heading in the right direction."

McCullum added that ad advantage for them before the mega auction is that they are not completely unaware about the ground realities as far as hunting for talent is concerned. 

He said, "No one is unfamilier to us because we have got scouts out there who are identifying younger players. We have got a lot of knowledge around athe local game."

Difficult to find a back up for Andre Russell

McCullum also spoke on finding a back up for Russell at the mega auction and that it is going to be a difficult task for them to do that as Russell is a rare talent. 

He said, " When Andre Russell is at his best, he is two world class players in one playing XI. That is why he is so valuable to us. To try and back up for these players is really difficult. That is going to be our discussion. All rounder as a back up? Or maybe you need two players, a batter and a bowler and try balance things differently if Dre Russ is out due to injury."