IPL 2018: Dinesh Karthik named Kolkata Knight Riders captain

Kolkata Knight Riders finally revealed who their captain will be for the upcoming Indian Premier League season.

KKR handed the baton to Dinesh Karthik ahead of the likes of Robin Uthappa and Chris Lynn who were among the favourites to lead the team in 2018.

KKR's social media handles had been running a poll for a while now and Lynn was the fan favourite to take on the mantle from Gautam Gambhir, who left for Delhi Daredevils during the auction in January.

Along with Karthik, Uthappa, Lynn, Vinay Kumar and Piyush Chawla were in the running for the job.

Karthik will have the services of Uthappa, who is the most experienced among the Knights. He has played 56 games for the Knights and scored 1806 runs from them at an average of 32.25. He has also hit 14 fifties during his time with the Kolkata franchise and finished with the Orange Cap in 2014, when KKR won their second IPL title. Uthappa slammed 660 runs from 15 matches at an average of 46.73 that year. In the process, he created a T20 record for having scored 40+ scores in 8 consecutive games.

Overall, Robbie has played 149 IPL matches and scored 3735 runs and 22 half-centuries -- making him the most experienced among his teammates in the KKR side.

KKR will play their first match against Virat Kohli's Royal Challengers Bangalore on April 8 at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata.

KKR squad: Robin Uthappa, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Mitchell Starc, Chris Lynn, Dinesh Karthik, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Shubman Gill, Ishank Jaggi, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Nitish Rana, Vinay Kumar, Apoorv Wankhade, Rinku Singh, Shivam Mavi, Cameron Delport, Mitchell Johnson, Javon Searless