IPL 2022: Kolkata Knight Riders Sign Aaron Finch As Replacement For Alex Hales | Cricket News

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have signed Australia’s T20 World Cup-winning captain Aaron Finch as a replacement for Englishman Alex Hales ahead of the Indian Premier League 2022 (IPL 2022) season. Hales has cited bubble fatigue as his reason for withdrawal from the tournament, the IPL stated in a press release on Friday evening. Finch has represented Australia in 88 T20Is and has scored 2,686 runs, including two hundreds and 15 half-centuries. Finch, who has played 87 IPL games and has over 2000 IPL runs, will join KKR at the price of Rs 1.5 crore.

KKR – the two-time IPL champions – will kickstart the IPL 2022 proceedings on March 26 when they take on Chennai Super Kings at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

Finch had played for RCB in 2020 scored 268 runs in 12 games but was released ahead of the IPL 2021 auction where he went unsold.

The IPL 2022 auction witnessed some intense bidding as teams assembled their respective squads the best they could.

Some of the biggest names went under the hammer, with a fair few surprises seen. Ishan Kishan was the most expensive buy of IPL auction 2022 with Mumbai Indians shelling out a whopping Rs 15.25 crore for the wicketkeeper-batter.

Chennai Super Kings paid Rs 14 crore for Deepak Chahar while Shreyas Iyer got a staggering Rs 12.25 crore deal from Kolkata Knight Riders.

India all-rounder Shardul Thakur made Delhi Capitals break the bank with a successful bid of Rs 10.75 crore.

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A total of 204 players were sold and Rs 551.70 crore was spent by the 10 franchises.

However, there were some big names that found no takers in the IPL auction, including Finch.