CHENNAI: On Sunday afternoon, Kolkata Knight Riders put an end to the fivc-match winning run of Sunrisers Hyderabad as they moved to seven points. While Ankgrish Raghuvanshi was the star of the show, with 59 from 47 balls, skipper Ajinkya Rahane chipped in too, scoring 43 runs from 36 balls.
Though KKR won and all is well in the camp, Rahane has once again found himself in a tricky place. After earning the reputation for his calm demeanour with the bat, question marks over his intent in this day and age of T20 cricket have been regular. And this season, it seemed like the questions had got to him too. Earlier in the season, Rahane took a jibe in a press conference about people who write about his strike rate.
While Rahane cannot be grouped with the likes Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Priyansh Arya and the rest, he claimed that he has a good IPL strike rate over the years. It did not help that his team plummeted with the opening pair changing between him, Tim Seifert and Finn Allen. Soon, Sunil Narine was given the opener’s slot, adding to the instability.
At the core of it all is Rahane's place in the top-order and XI. The Mumbai player came into IPL 2025 on the back of a blistering Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in 2024, finishing as the highest-run getter with 469 runs at a strike rate of 164.56. Rahane may have taken confidence into IPL 2026 on the back of a creditable performance in the domestic T20 league, scoring 391 runs with a strike rate of 161.57.
However, he has not enjoyed similar returns in the IPL. This season, he has struck at 131.41. Only Ruturaj Gaikwad of the Chennai Super Kings (125.64) has struck lower than Rahane among openers. With the powerplay phase mostly having openers going hammer and tongs, Rahane’s numbers in that phase may look good but does not hold up to his comments of him having the ‘best strike-rate.’ Since IPL 2023, the skipper has scored 619 runs in the powerplay phase of 38 innings, averaging 56.3. His strike rate in this phase is at 159.5. Sooryavanshi tops the list with 218.70. His strike rate in middle-overs and death only drop further.
In the reverse fixture of the match against SRH – where Hyderabad won by 65 runs – Rahane had a brief yet rare outburst over this aspect of his game. “The amount of success which I got, I guess they are jealous of me. I am not too worried. Just one bad inning. My intent was there. Sometimes as a batter, you don't get that rhythm, you don't get that flow,” he said.
Ever since that comment, Rahane has gone on to strike higher than 150 only once (170.8). In KKR’s defeat to Lucknow Super Giants, the skipper scored 41 off 24 balls. KKR's campaign is still not over. If they win the remaining five games, they could comfortably go into the play-offs. But for that to happen, they will have to take a hard look at their captain and what he does with the bat. For, it is only a matter of time before Rahane's style of play cost KKR dearly.
Brief scores: SRH 165 in 19 ovs (Head 61, Kishan 42; Chakravarthy 3/36) lost to KKR 169/3 in 18.2 ovs (Raghuvanshi 59, Rahane 43; Sakib 1/17)