Ajinkya Rahane ruled out the possibility that the hefty price tag might have affected the player’s performance. Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Ajinkya Rahane opined below-par batting performances from prominent batters such as Rinku Singh and Andre Russell, was the primary cause of the two-time champions dismal eighth-place finish in this year’s IPL.
Rahane asserted that though the bowling unit performed almost as expected, the downturn of three premier batters threw their campaign off track. KKR’s campaign came to an end with a humiliating 110-run loss against Sunrisers Hyderabad here on Monday.
It’s just that for us as a team, three guys were out of form. Where we went wrong was at the batting end. As a batting unit, together, we couldn’t perform,” Rahane said at the post-match media interaction.
“Unfortunately, two-three players were in that phase for us. And that’s the reason that we couldn’t perform.But again, they are fairly much experienced enough to tackle this situation.”.
“I am sure they will return stronger next year. Rinku (Singh), Raman (Ramandeep Singh), all the players, they will understand the mistakes and return stronger.” Venkatesh Iyer (average 20.28), Andre Russell (18.55), Rinku (29.42), and Ramandeep (9.40), who were instrumental in KKR’s 2024 title victory, couldn’t match their standards this season, damaging the team’s chances.
On Sunday, Sunrisers Hyderabad dumped a whopping 278/3 — the third-largest total in IPL history — on the back of Heinrich Klaasen’s 37-ball century, before restricting KKR to 168. Earlier losses like the loss against Punjab Kings, while chasing only 112, and a four-run loss against Lucknow Super Giants while chasing 239, proved more costly for KKR’s season.
They also played two rain-affected games and finally settled with five victories from 14 matches. See, this season, I think for us, (it has been) kind of an up and down. We had our moments. We had our chances and I said that earlier also during those matches, as a unit, we didn’t play well, really well,” Rahane said.
“But again, this format, that’s how it goes, you know. the Punjab Kings game, LSG game and also the CSK game, I thought those two three games could have been slightly different.”.
