Indian Premier League (IPL) defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have appointed Ajinkya Rahane as their captain for the upcoming 2025 season of the tournament. The franchise had released their last edition's captain Shreyas Iyer before the mega auction and there were reports that the likes of Venkatesh Iyer and Sunil Narine were in contention but the team management backed the experience of Rahane.
KKR CEO Venky Mysore also accepted that Venkatesh’s name was discussed for the leadership role but they wanted more ‘maturity and experience’ and for the same reason, Rahane got the captaincy. However, Venkatesh was bought for INR 23.75 crore in the mega auction and has been appointed as Rahane's deputy.
“IPL is quite an intense tournament. Clearly, we think very well of Venkatesh Iyer, but at the same time it [captaincy] is taxing on a youngster. We have seen lots of people having lots of challenges with it [handling captaincy] as they go forward. It takes a very steady hand, takes a lot of maturity and experience which we felt Ajinkya brings with him,” Mysore told ESPNcricinfo.
“He has played 185 IPL games, 200 international games across formats. He has led India, led Mumbai in domestic, he's led in IPL. And he has played from season one of IPL. All that is massive. There should be no surprise at all [on appointing Rahane as captain],” he added.
Venky Mysore believes that captaincy is not just leading the team, it includes dealing with media interaction with the support staff and coaches.
“There's a lot of [other] stuff when it comes to IPL, including dealing with media, and there will be expectation in terms of the captain. At the same time, it is a new cycle, there is diversity in the team, if you have to be a successful captain you have to invest in building relationships with everybody And then there's preparatory stuff in terms of camps, bowlers' meetings, batters' meetings, interaction with coaches - that's a lot to take in. From that perspective we are lucky we have got Ajinkya,” he mentioned.
IPL 2025 is scheduled to start from March 22 where KKR play the tournament opener against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.