Kolkata Knight Riders captain Ajinkya Rahane is likely to bat at number 3, as per reports. The veteran was bought by the defending champions for his base price at the IPL 2025 mega auction. While KKR could have accommodated Rahane as an opener, the team wants to continue with Narine at the top and de Kock as his partner.
Rahane to bat at number 3 in KKR
As per RevSportz, Rahane is set to occupy Venkatesh Iyer’s position at number three. The report states that KKR will experiment with their skipper batting at that position for a few games before thinking about a change in strategy. In the previous edition of the tournament, Iyer batted at number 3 in most of the matches and tasted success.
Rahane batted at number 3 in the practice matches at the Eden Gardens on Monday but failed to fire. He only managed to score 13(11) in the first practice game and 11(9) in the second. KKR will hope that the Mumbai batter will be able to replicate his SMAT heroics in IPL 2025 as well.
The Mumbai batter had a sensational Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) season in 2024. He finished with 469 runs from 9 matches, with 5 half-centuries and averaging 58.62. The best part is all his knocks came as an opening batter for Mumbai. Rahane displayed stellar consistency at the top-order for Mumbai in the tournament. He registered scores of 37, 98, 84, 95, 22, DNB, 68, 52, 13.
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
