Given the amount spent on them, one of Rinku or Venkatesh emerged as a leading contender to take over the leadership duties next season after Iyer’s omission.
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) made two big decisions before and during the IPL 2025 auction. They retained their star batter, Rinku Singh, as their top retention and bought Venkatesh Iyer for a whopping INR 23.75 crores during the auction, making him the third-most expensive player in the IPL 2025 auction.
The key reason behind acquiring them was piling dual responsibility on him and making them their next leader. With Shreyas Iyer released and moved to Punjab Kings (PBKS), KKR required a captain to succeed Iyer, who helped KKR win their third title in IPL 2024.
Given the amount spent on them, one of Rinku or Venkatesh emerged as a leading contender to take over the leadership duties next season after Iyer’s omission. However, a fresh report by the Times of India (TOI) has indicated that KKR is seeing Ajinkya Rahane, bought at his base price of INR 1.50 crore, as their next captain.
“Yes, at the moment it’s 90% confirmed that Ajinkya will be the new KKR captain. He was bought by KKR, especially for the purpose of being a viable captaincy option,” a source told TOI.
Captaincy is not new for Ajinkya Rahane, for he has previously led Rising Pune Supergiant (RPSG) in 2017 and Rajasthan Royals (RR) in 2018 and 2019 in the IPL. As a captain, he scored 583 runs at an average of 25.34 and a strike rate of 122.22 in 24 IPL innings, including two fifties.
Under his leadership, Rajasthan Royals could only win nine matches out of 24 and lost the only game he captained Supergiant in. Recently, he was removed from the captaincy position of Mumbai’s domestic side, with Shreyas Iyer, who has a proven track record, being given the additional responsibility.
It will be ironic if Rahane replaces him as a captain in KKR since the responsibilities will be swapped. However, he doesn’t have a proven batting record in IPL.
Barring a one-off season with Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Rahane hasn’t done anything significant, and his methods are often outdated. Even his place in the side is often not confirmed, and making him the captain can backfire significantly.
For more updates, follow CricXtasy on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, and YouTube.
