Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Ajinkya Rahane led his team from the front and hit a cracking half-century in just 25 deliveries against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the IPL 2025 season opener at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Saturday. Rahane went for a slogsweep against Suyash Sharma to bring up his fifty in the ninth over on his debut as KKR captain.
The batter from Mumbai scored 56 in 31 deliveries before holing out to Rasikh Salam off Krunal Pandya in the 11 over. Rahane, who came in the first over after the fall of opener Quinton de Kock, added 103 for the second wicket alongside the other opener, Sunil Narine.
Rahane did not shy away from taking on RCB’s pace attack, hitting as many as six fours and four sixes while scoring at an impressive strike rate of 180.65. Surprisingly, Rahane went unsold in the first round of the mega auction ahead of IPL 2025. He was eventually brought by the defending champion Kolkata at his base price of 1.5 crore.
With Rahane’s counterattacking knock, KKR put 174/8 on the board in 20 overs, but RCB came all guns blazing in pursuit of 175. Openers Phil Salt and Virat Kohli slammed quickfire half-centuries, taking RCB home in just 16.2 overs.
With this win, RCB jumped on top of the points table with a healthy Net Run Rate of +2.137, while KKR slumped to the bottom.