IPL 2025: The one who was not getting a buyer, became a big player! By making Rahane the captain, KKR has hit many targets with one arrow

The 18th season of IPL, which is called India's festival, is starting from March 22. In the first match, Kolkata Knight Riders will face Royal Challengers Bangalore. This match will be played at Eden Garden Stadium in Kolkata. Recently, Kolkata Knight Riders announced the name of their captain. Ajinkya Rahane has been given the command of the franchise.

Highlights

1. IPL 2025 is starting from 22 March
2. Kolkata will face RCB in the first match
3. KKR won the title last season

Vishal Shrestha, Jagran, Kolkata: He was not able to find a buyer in the IPL auction held in November last year and today he is the captain of defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), on whose shoulders will be the big responsibility of defending the title.

The decision to make 36-year-old Ajinkya Rahane the captain has surprised everyone. Why has the newcomer Rahane, who has the tag of a Test player, been made the captain of a team that already has T20 specialists like Sunil Narayan, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell and Rinku Singh? This question is in the minds of many.

Bought for Rs 1.5 crore

On the first day of the auction, no franchise showed interest in buying Rahane. On the second day, when his name was called again, KKR bought him at the base price of Rs 1.5 crore. Sources associated with KKR are calling Rahane's inclusion in the team and making him the captain directly a well thought out strategy.

He said that KKR's team management has always given importance to experience in captaincy. From the first captain Sourav Ganguly to Brendon McCullum, Jacques Kallis, Gautam Gambhir, Ian Morgan and Dinesh Karthik, all have been very experienced. The previous captain Shreyas Iyer was relatively young, while Nitish Rana has captained in a few matches as a caretaker.

Strategy to keep key players pressure-free

The team management did not want to put the pressure of captaincy on its most prominent players like Venkatesh, Narayan, Russell and Rinku Singh. It was also not in favour of making a foreign player the captain because whenever the command was handed over to foreign players, the performance of the team was disappointing. The team could not perform well under the captaincy of McCullum, Kallis and Morgan.

All three times, Indian captains have won the trophy for KKR. Gambhir won the title in 2012 and 2014 and Shreyas in 2024. The team has no shortage of good batsmen and bowlers. What is needed is a captain who can use them in the best way according to the situation. Rahane can play this role very well. Rahane will also be able to focus on captaincy because there will not be much pressure on him as a batsman.

As is the situation, so is the game

One good thing about Rahane is that he is adept at batting according to the situation. In the last Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Rahane has scored the most runs (469) at a strike rate of 164.56 and an average of more than 58. He has scored more than 500 runs for Rajasthan Royals in two seasons of IPL. Not only this, he also has two centuries in IPL, which means that a captaincy innings can be expected from him when needed.

Rahane has been a part of KKR

Head coach Chandrakant Pandit is said to have played an important role in making Rahane the captain. Chandrakant is considered one of the big coaches of Ranji Trophy and Rahane is the captain of Mumbai. This is Rahane's second innings with KKR. Earlier in 2022, he had scored only 133 runs in seven matches for KKR. However, the record of captaincy in IPL is not in Rahane's favor. Rahane has previously captained Rising Pune Supergiants and Rajasthan Royals and has failed in both.