Ajinkya Rahane might be in a spot of bother. For someone who went unsold in the first round of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction and then was named Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain, Rahane will be under immense pressure.
Price tag pressure on Ajinkya Rahane
Not to forget, he’s being paid just Rs 1.50 crore. In comparison, the last KKR captain, Shreyas Iyer, will get Rs 26.75 crore from his new franchise, the Punjab Kings. The difference is just massive, to say the least.
He wasn’t even part of the Rs 2 crore bracket of players in the IPL 2025 auction. From that to being the KKR captain, that’s a big ask. And could be someone that weighs Rahane down. He was picked ahead of Venkatesh Iyer, despite KKR shelling out Rs 23.75 crore for the southpaw. Clearly, him being experienced and captaining teams like Rajasthan Royals and Rising Pune Supergiant played a role.
Rahane fails in KKR practice matches for IPL 2025
Rahane’s form in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) 2024-25 was exceptional as well. But that may have changed. That tournament ended in December. His T20 form wouldn’t have been determined otherwise, but luckily KKR is playing practice matches at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
In these pre-IPL 2025 matches, Rahane has managed to score 13(11) in the first practice game and 11(9) in the second. This doesn’t look good for Rahane. One can’t forget that now that he’s KKR captain, he has to play. Someone like Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who’s a top-order batter as well, might have to warm the bench so that Rahane can be accommodated.
The question is if Rahane fails in the starting few matches, for how long will KKR persist with him? He might as well take the same fate as India’s captain Rohit Sharma, who had to drop himself midway through the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25, having scored just 31 runs at a 6.20 average in 3 matches.
KKR squad for IPL 2025
Batters: Rinku Singh, Quinton de Kock (wk), Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Luvnith Sisodia, Ajinkya Rahane (c).
All-Rounders: Venkatesh Iyer (vc), Anukul Roy, Moeen Ali, Ramandeep Singh, Andre Russell.
Bowlers: Anrich Nortje, Vaibhav Arora, Mayank Markande, Spencer Johnson, Chetan Sakariya (replaces Umran Malik), Harshit Rana, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy.
