As per the official release from Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Saturday, West Indies fast bowler Ottis Gibson was appointed as the assistant coach by KKR ahead of the 18th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025.
He comes with extensive experience. Before starting his career as a coach, Ottis was a former Barbados fast bowler with more than 650 first-class wickets to his name. From 1995 to 1999, he played for the West Indies in both Tests and ODIs. He has served twice as the bowling coach of the England Cricket Team—from 2007 to 2010 and from 2015 to 2017.
During his tenure as head coach of the West Indies from 2010 to 2014, the team lifted its first ICC World T20 title in Sri Lanka. Later on, after serving as the South African team’s head coach from 2017 to 2019, he has since held several coaching positions across the T20 franchise circuit.
Now, KKR has a strong group of support staff:
Ottis Gibson: Assistant Coach
Mentor: Dwayne Bravo
Head Coach: Chandrakant Pandit
Bowling Coach: Bharat Arun
Spin-bowling Coach: Carl Crowe
Last year in November 2024, he was the coach of Ajman Bolts in the Abu Dhabi T10 league. The IPL 2025 season is set to start on March 22, and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are scheduled to play their first match against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Kolkata.
Kolkata Knight Riders Squad (KKR) for IPL 2025:
Batters: Rinku Singh (retained), Rovman Powell, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manish Pandey, Luvnith Sisodia, Ajinkya Rahane.
All-rounders: Venkatesh Iyer (pace), Andre Russell (pace; retained), Sunil Narine (spin; retained), Ramandeep Singh (pace; retained), Anukul Roy (spin), Moeen Ali (spin).
Wicketkeepers: Quinton de Kock, Rahmanullah Gurbaz.
Spinners: Varun Chakravarthy (retained), Mayank Markande.
Pacers: Harshit Rana (retained), Vaibhav Arora, Anrich Nortje, Spencer Johnson, Umran Malik.
