Shubman Gill was one of Kolkata's biggest finds when the two-time champions snapped the Punjab southpaw at the player auction in 2018 for INR 1.8 crores from his base price of INR 20 lakh. Gill sc 1417 scored 1417 runs in 58 IPL matches at an average of 31.48 and a strike rate of 123. He won the Emerging Player of the Year award in 2019. During the retentions he was not part of the management choice as the team let him go. KKR went in with Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer, and Sunil Narine. However, Gill was snapped by Ahmedabad franchise for 7 crore. Now Gill took to Instagram and shared a farewell message for his former team along with the caption, "Kolkata you were a dream." Kolkata Knight Riders also uploaded a photo and video of Gill and thanked him for his contribution for four years.
Ahmedabad and Lucknow are the two new franchises that will take part in the upcoming season of the IPL. Ahmedabad is owned by CVC Capitals and has decided to pick Gill, Hardik Pandya, and Rashid Khan. Hardik would be captaining the side and has been picked for INR 15 crores. Afghanistan spinner Rashid has also been picked for INR 15 crores. The team has also named Ashish Nehra as their head coach with Gary Kirsten donning the mentor's role. Kirsten had been appointed as coach and mentor of the Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2019, taking over from Daniel Vettori. He was earlier batting coach for the 2018 season along with Ashish Nehra, who was named bowling coach, which is why the South African said he was comfortable working alongside both the Delhi pacer and Vikram Solanki - the Director of Cricket at the franchise.
