KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane blames “Collective batting failure” for crushing defeat vs MI

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain Ajinkya Rahane expressed disappointment over his team’s “collective batting failure” after their heavy defeat to Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium. The Mumbai side clinched their first win of the IPL 2025 season, and most of the credit for the match goes to amazing bowling from MI players, where they dismissed KKR for just 116 runs.

Ajinkya Rahane’s reflections

Reflecting on the defeat, Rahane acknowledged that the team failed to capitalise on a good batting wicket. “Collective batting failure. It was a good wicket to bat on, as I mentioned in the toss. 180-190 would have been good on this wicket. It has a very good bounce. Sometimes you have to use the pace and bounce. We got to learn really fast from this game,” Rahane said.

Despite KKR’s attempts with the ball, the lack of runs made it challenging to put pressure on their opponents. “We kept on losing wickets. Four wickets in the powerplay. It was difficult to consolidate and get that total on the board. You need that partnership going. You need one batsman to stay till the end,” Rahane added during the post-match presentation.

MI’s clinical performance

Mumbai Indians showed their bowling strength with Ashwani Kumar leading the attack, taking 4/24 on his debut. Ryan Rickelton then scored an unbeaten 62 to secure an eight-wicket victory for MI, chasing down the target with nearly seven overs remaining. This win helped MI to move up the IPL points table, overtaking KKR now.

Early setbacks and struggles for KKR

The match started poorly for KKR as openers Sunil Narine and Quinton de Kock fell in the first two overs, with the team posting only two runs due to striking deliveries from Trent Boult and Deepak Chahar. KKR struggled to recover from these early setbacks and continued to lose wickets, unable to build any substantial partnerships.

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