Ajinkya Rahane, Kolkata Knight Riders captain, reckoned that the home side would prefer to have pitches at Eden Gardens that help their spinners, after Royal Challengers Bengaluru thrashed the hosts by seven wickets, chasing down the 175-run target in 16.2 overs, in the IPL 2025 opener.
With the Eden Gardens pitch flat as anything, Varun Chakaravarthy was taken to the cleaners as the mystery spinner conceded 43 runs in his four-over quota while taking just one wicket. For RCB, Suyash Sharma conceded 47 runs in his four overs. To the contrary, Krunal Pandya was brilliant, scalping three and conceding 29 runs whereas Sunil Narine ended up giving away just 27 runs in his four overs.
“We would love to see that the pitch, helping our spinners, but again, this pitch was under cover, for the last one-and-a-half days. Again, we would love to see some spin on this wicket, but again, no complaints. Both the spinners, which we have, their quality, they can go on any kind of wicket and I’m sure they are confident as well. But I think this wicket was different, because it was under cover, as it was raining,” Rahane said.
KKR looked flat with the bat and ball, with only Rahane shining with the willow as he scored a stroke-filled 56 off 31. However, he did not get support. With the ball, KKR were no match for the RCB batters.
“Hard to pin point a few things. First match of the season. In a few areas, we did really well. But they bowled well in the first three overs and after the 13th over. Don’t want to focus on the middle overs. Going to back everyone,” Rahane said.
One surprising call that KKR made was to send Rinku Singh at No 6, followed by Andre Russell at 7 and Ramandeep Singh at 8, which seemed a tad bit low for their batting ability.
“Rinku has been batting really well for KKR and also for the Indian team. Yes, we are thinking about it (sending Rinku ahead) but sometimes, we play with certain situations and you have to see who is actually better in that particular situation. We thought Angkrish was the better option. So the plan was to send Rinku, but we lost my wicket and Venkatesh, so Angkrish was on that time. But again as I mentioned, Rinku, we will see him bat up in the order,” Rahane said.