The Kolkata Knight Riders batter, Venkatesh Iyer, who already holds an MBA degree, has assured to have a doctorate degree before the 2025 Indian Premier League starts. In 2018, he completed his MBA but turned down a job offer from Delloite in Bangalore, as he wanted to stay in Indore and focus on cricket. Venkatesh Iyer has been a great fanatic of education and supports pursuing courses as a basic priority. His philosophy is simple: cricket won't stay till 60, but education will. In an interview to Indian Express, Iyer told, "I want cricketers to educate themselves not just with cricketing knowledge, but general knowledge as well. If you can complete your graduation or post-graduation, you definitely should. I am pursuing my PhD (finance) now. You will be interviewing me as Dr. Venkatesh Iyer next time!" Read Also: KKR Squad for IPL 2025: Kolkata Knight Riders Full Squad and Probable XI Venkatesh Iyer seeks help from education to divert from cricket Venkatesh Iyer was KKR's first buy in the 2025 IPL mega auction as they already retained six players (Rinku Singh, Harshit Rana, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Ramandeep Singh, and Varun Chakaravarthy). KKR paid a hefty amount of INR 23.75 crores, but yet he wants to continue with education. He said, "I come from an orthodox family, so it is tough to convince middle-class parents that I will pursue only cricket. But it was the other way around. I was big on academics. My parents wanted me to do well in the game as well. I come from an orthodox family, so it is tough to convince middle-class parents that I will pursue only cricket. But it was the other way around. I was big on academics. My parents wanted me to do well in the game as well." Apart from that, he said that academics provide a necessary break from the game, helping make better decisions on and off the field. Venkatesh Iyer scored 370 runs at an average of 46.25 in the 2024 IPL season.