Shoaib Akhtar up for sale

IPL Kolkata, Jan 06, 2009: Kolkata Knight Riders are in no mood to retain controversial Pakistani speedster Shoaib Akhtar for the Indian Premier League's second season and today put him "up for trade" in the transfer window which is open till January 22. "Shoaib is up for trade... We cannot have room for two pacers (that includes Umar Gul),"
KKR coach John Buchanan told reporters on the sidelines of their first day's selection trials at the Eden Gardens here today.

Many players are being put on sale by their respective franchises with the trading window closing on Janaury 22.

The eight franchises will have opportunities during the trading window to trade players either by offering to sell a player or by expressing an interest to acquire one.

The World Cup winning Australian coach, however, said the team was happy with the controversial speedster's performance.

Asked whether Knight Riders might reconsider their decision, Buchanan replied: "In fact, I will think about Shoaib many many times. At the moment, he is up for trade. When he came here for a brief period he certainly made an impact as a bowler and as a player... That means that he is a potential good bowler, good try in 20-over cricket.

"However, at this stage, we have got him go as part of our line-up and I really don't see there is room for both in our make-up. Therefore, we opted to place Shoaib in trade list at this stage. Let's wait and see what happens next." Shoaib played just three matches for the Kolkata team and missed a couple of games due to injury in the first edition of IPL where KKR missed the semi-final bus, finishing sixth out of eight teams.