“I’m excited to be back with the Knight Riders in this role,” ten Doeschate said in a statement. “This is a unique opportunity to work with the coaching and analytics teams across our global franchises to strengthen our scouting/player development systems, and to build a long-term cricket strategy.”

Ten Doeschate, the 46-year-old former Netherlands captain, has been closely associated with the Knight Riders since he represented KKR in IPL 2011. He was part of the title-winning squads in 2012 and 2014, and was then a part of the coaching group from 2022 to 2024, a period in which the franchise won their third title, with Gautam Gambhir as mentor, Chandrakant Pandit as head coach and Shreyas Iyer as captain.

Ten Doeschate moved away from the KKR set-up after their IPL 2024 victory when he was picked by Gambhir, who took over as India’s head coach from Rahul Dravid following the team’s win in the 2024 T20 World Cup, to be part of his support-staff team.

A statement from the Knight Riders Group said that ten Doeschate would be leading the strategic direction for scouting, player recruitment, squad planning and performance evaluation across all four teams under the Knight Riders banner and also serve as an assistant coach for TKR, ADKR and LAKR.

“We are delighted to welcome Tendo back to the Knight Riders family,” group CEO Venky Mysore said. “His deep understanding of our philosophy, combined with his experience across franchise and international cricket, makes him ideally suited for this role. He will help shape the next phase of growth across the Knight Riders ecosystem.”

At the IPL, ten Doeschate will again link up with Abhishek Nayar, the KKR head coach with whom he has worked closely in both the franchise set-up and with the India men’s team. The two of them were assistant coaches briefly during Gambhir’s tenure with KKR and later with India, before Nayar took up the KKR head coach position ahead of IPL 2025.