Ajinkya Rahane made a sensational start to his captaincy stint at Kolkata Knight Riders, hammering a 25-ball half-century against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the season opener of IPL 2025 at the Eden Gardens on Saturday. This was Rahane’s 31st half-century in the IPL in his 186th match.
First match as #KKR captain
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) March 22, 2025
First fifty of the season
Ajinkya Rahane continues to make merry
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Captain Rahane delivers
Kolkata Knight Riders bought Ajinkya Rahane for Rs 1.5 crore in the players’ auction in November and since then, there was immense speculation over who would lead the defending IPL champions as they had also released Shreyas Iyer.
Ajinkya Rahane, an accomplished captain, was the obvious choice and Venkatesh Iyer was named his deputy at KKR weeks before the 2025 season got underway.
Ajinkya Rahane’s IPL career seemed to have derailed a few years back before a surprise selection by Chennai Super Kings helped him send out reminders on why he is such a useful cricketer.
In 2023, Rahane was at his marauding best with 326 runs at a strike rate of 172.49 as Chennai Super Kings won the IPL for the fifth time.
KKR, who had relied so much on fire and power in their successful campaign last year, perhaps looked at Rahane’s newly found destructive abilities when they snapped him up for what seems to be now a steal of a deal.
Rahane walked in to bat at No.3 after Quinton de Kock was taken out early by Josh Hazlewood and the new KKR captain immediately imposed himself in the middle, much like he had done for CSK two summers ago.
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