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Ajinkya Rahane is experienced and in excellent form. But is he the right choice for KKR’s captaincy?
Ajinkya Rahane. (Picture Credit: Sportzpics)
There was a lot of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) color at the 2024 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) between Mumbai and Madhya Pradesh on Sunday.
Champions Mumbai were led by Shreyas Iyer, KKR’s IPL 2024-winning captain who was released and not signed back at the 2025 auction. There aren’t many bigger achievements than winning IPL and SMAT as captain within months.
Chandrakant Pandit, Iyer’s KKR coach, sat in the Madhya Pradesh dressing room and missed the same honor. The Player of the Tournament was Mumbai’s senior batter Ajinkya Rahane, who KKR signed for his base price of Rs. 2 crore at the auction. He was dismissed for 37 (30) by all-rounder Venkatesh Iyer, KKR’s highest-ever signing at Rs. 23.75 crore.
Now, Pandit is one of the KKR decision-makers tasked to find a captaincy replacement for Shreyas, who’ll now feature for the Punjab Kings. Venkatesh and Rahane are the reported front-runners, while the Times of India has claimed the latter is ’90 %’ certain to take over.
Giving Rahane the job would be understandably tempting for KKR. Before SMAT, one of the few things going against him was him not being certain starter in the team. After topping the runs chart with 469 runs at an average of 58.62 and a strike rate of 164.56 in the tournament, he has put those concerns to bed.
Then, he has obvious credentials — the 2020-21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy — and the years of experience of playing across various teams in the IPL.
“Well, you know that,” KKR CEO Venky Mysore had said on Jio Cinema regarding Rahane after the auction. “To be honest, we have to sit down and take stock. Sometimes what happens is, after you’ve done all of these things, you just have to sit down, reflect, and look at the whole thing. There are stakeholders and parts of the think tank won’t be here. So we’ll all sit down and have a proper chat about that, and I’m sure a proper decision will be made.”
But choosing Rahane is not that straightforward. Firstly, his captaincy numbers in the IPL are poor at best. He has worn the armband in 25 IPL matches — for the Rajasthan Royals (RR) and the Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) — and won just nine. His loss percentage of 64 as captain is the worst for any player who has led in at least 20 IPL matches.
At the 2020-21 BGT, Rahane’s on-field tactics, shrewd unique plans for each Australian batter, and charming bravery off the field stood out. But in T20s, when time is luxury and quick decision-making is key, he has often been found lacking. That happened too often in 2019 when the Royals sacked him midway through the season after a string of bad results.
KKR can also not ignore that Mumbai chose Shreyas as the captain for SMAT, overlooking that Rahane was six years his senior. That also brings us to our second point — Rahane is 36 years old and, if promoted, will be the oldest captain in the league, excluding Royal Challengers Bengaluru, who don’t have a set captaincy choice apart from Virat Kohli either.
Mega auction years are the ones to build for the future, where a franchise’s goal should be to win the title in one of the next three years before another such auction. KKR’s excellent IPL 2024 team also took three years under Shreyas to get the desired result.
Rahane would be quite a short-term solution. Even if he carries his SMAT form into the IPL this year, it won’t be right to expect him to continue contributing big runs with the bat for the next three years. His extraordinary 2023 season with the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) was sandwiched between two poor ones for KKR and CSK, where his technical deficiencies and inability to keep a consistent strike rate in the middle overs have been found out.
So, with him, KKR will either likely need another captaincy change (possibly signing an overseas one in the auction) before 2026 or will be left with an out-of-form 37-year-old leader in the middle of a season.
That risk doesn’t seem worth blocking the pathway for someone like Venkatesh, who was KKR’s vice-captain for most of the games last season or even Rinku Singh, who was KKR’s first-choice retention this year and has captained Uttar Pradesh in domestic cricket. Both players have been with KKR for longer than Rahane as well and have previously spoken about the loyalty they feel for the franchise.
“This is a family,” Venkatesh told Rev Sports before the auction. “There’s so much emotion. It kind of makes me teary-eyed that my name is not on the retention list but I am a practical guy. I understand how it works. I was on the receiving end of on being one of the retentions in 2022 and I knew how it feels to be retained and to be left out as well.
“So, I think KKR have had a great retention, really happy for that. I would love to be there and the doors are open. If I have a good auction then I might still end up playing for the team I love the most.”
There would be pressure of managing a team that won the title last year, yes, but there can’t be a much easier time to do so, considering KKR has one of the most balanced squads in the league with a set winning formula. In a way, captaining KKR is an easier job than what Shreyas will have in Mohali.
Either of Rinku and Venkatesh would provide consistency and promise stability for at least the next three years, while also retaining the connection fans share with the team. Even for the players, staff and owners it would be easier to trust someone promoted from within the system than someone with one of the rivals in the last two years.
With Venkatesh or Rinku, KKR won’t have to face doubts over their captain making the first 11 and can build towards another peak, without compromising on immediate success.