Former Australia all-rounder Tom Moody has stated that Gautam Gambhir was pivotal in Kolkata Knight Riders retaining Andre Russell and Sunil Narine for the 2024 season of the Indian Premier League.

Gambhir has returned to the IPL franchise as a mentor for the 2024 IPL season.

KKR on Sunday retained Russell and Narine along with Anukul Roy, Harshit Rana, Jason Roy, Nitish Rana, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, and Venkatesh Iyer.

Russell joined KKR in 2014, while Narine joined in 2012 and both have been mainstays in the team since then.

“They both have been phenomenal cricketers for KKR. I feel that Gambhir has been quite pivotal in the retention of Russell and Narine. Gambhir understands them, he’s played with them, he’s captained them and he’ll be able to get the best out of them,” said Moody to ESPNCricinfo.

However, Moody also revealed their hesitation regarding Russell’s physical condition instead of his performance. Russell scored 227 runs in 14 matches while picking seven wickets for KKR in IPL 2023.

“I think we’ll see a different outcome in 2024 with regards to what Russell brings to the table. The only hesitation I have is not skill. It’s whether he can hold together physically because we’ve seen him break down on a couple of occasions over recent years and it’s been quite alarming. His bowling has been pretty limited as well, and they haven’t had the access to his full quota of overs,” Moody added.