One of Kolkata Knight Riders’ most iconic performers has called it a day on his Indian Premier League career after the franchise released him for the 2026 edition. In an emotional video message, the 37-year-old said he has ended his IPL playing days but will stay on with KKR in a new role as the franchise’s “power coach”.
Russell said it was a tough call, but after much thought, many sleepless nights and heart-to-heart chats with KKR CEO Venky Mysore and team co-owner Shah Rukh Khan, he arrived at the decision. The allrounder said he wanted to “leave a legacy” and retire while supporters still felt he had more cricket in him. “I don’t want to fizzle out,” he said, remembering the days when he had played ferocious sixes and single-handedly won games, when he earned the MVP award.
After being part of KKR since 2014, and having won the tournament with them in 2014 and 2024, Russell deemed it a natural progression to move into a support-staff role. The team officially appointed him as “Power coach”, something that Russell laughed is the perfect description for his own manner and brand of footy. He was looking forward to mentoring players across the batting, bowling and fielding disciplines – in each of which his intensity and raw power have left a mark.
Russell’s announcement came on a day when the registration for the IPL auction, to be held in Abu Dhabi on December 16, closed. His release now takes away INR 18 crore from KKR’s purse as per the IPL rules which means, they will have a tournament-high of INR 64.3 crore in their squad for the upcoming auction next year. But the team will have a lot of work to do, with only 12 players in their squad for now.
The franchise is believed to have considered letting go of Russell in the 2025 mega auction too, but then they had held on to him for INR 12 crore. This year, KKR chose to start afresh under a new group of coaches. Venkatesh Iyer, Quinton de Kock, Anrich Nortje and Rahmanullah Gurbaz were some of the other top releases.
In 133 KKR games, Russell metamorphosed into one of the IPL’s greatest superstars. In all he scored 2593 runs off a strike rate of 174.96, clobbered 220 sixes and picked up 122 wickets – only the second player after Ravindra Jadeja to make the double of with over 2000 runs and more than a century of wickets in IPL history. He also won 16 Player-of-the-Match awards, second only to Sunil Narine, his teammate at KKR, and was the league’s MVP in 2019.
While Russell has officially retired from all forms of cricket, he assured that his journey in and with Kolkata is far from over. “So Kolkata I will see you soon,” he vowed. “To be in an environment where I’m comfortable – that’s a factor for me. I will be joining the KKR support staff, so that my passion and experience is used to contribute to the next chapter.
With Abhishek Nayar as the new head coach, Tim Southee as the bowling coach, Shane Watson joining in an assistant’s role and Dwayne Bravo already on board as a mentor Russell now joins the backroom staff that has a different look to steer KKR into future.