Former Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) star Piyush Chawla praised the franchise's decision to appoint Ajinkya Rahane as their captain for the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. He recalled Rahane's last edition's IPL performance for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) where he was smashing bowlers to all over the ground.
KKR brought Rahane for just 1.50 crore INR in the IPL 2025 mega auction at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The franchise recently appointed him as their captain for the upcoming edition of the tournament.
"He looked exceptional in the last two years while playing for CSK. Apart from that, he has the experience. He has captained India and has captained in franchise cricket. The challenge for any team after the mega auction is to set their playing XI. Even if you have retained your core, you have to set the remaining five or six players. The earlier they do that, the better it would be for the team," Piyush Chawla told Star Sports.
Rahane captaincy record
This is not the first time Rahane has led in his IPL career. From IPL 2018 to 2019, he led Rajasthan Royals (RR). Under his captaincy, RR won nine out of 24 games and could not make it to the playoffs. Rahane has led India in six Tests, three ODIs and two T20Is. Rahane has led India to victory on Australia soil in Border-Gavaskar Trophy, including the iconic Gabba win. He recently led Mumbai in Ranji Trophy 2024-25. He has captained Mumbai's One-Day and T20 team as well.
IPL 2025 is scheduled to start from March 22, where defending champions KKR will take on Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the opening clash of the tournament, which will take place at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
KKR's IPL 2025 squad
Rinku Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Harshit Rana, Ramandeep Singh, Venkatesh Iyer, Quinton de Kock, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Anrich Nortje, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Vaibhav Arora, Mayank Markande, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Spencer Johnson, Luvnith Sisodia, Ajinkya Rahane, Anukul Roy, Moeen Ali, Umran Malik