After a couple of low scores, Venkatesh Iyer finally came to the party for the Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2025, smashing his third consecutive fifty-plus score for the franchise against Sunrisers Hyderabad. On a wicket that spun a bit, KKR’s 200-run total proved to be too much for the Sunrisers.
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) got the pitch they wanted and didn’t put their foot off the gas with the bat or ball in the repeat of last year’s final against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the Eden Gardens. It wasn’t a belter as it spun a bit but didn’t have any demons on the surface as well and if the batters got set, they got value for the shots. Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ajinkya Rahane, Venkatesh Iyer and Rinku Singh all had to get their eyes in before attacking and the long batting line-up came to their rescue for the final five-over launch that saw the hosts score 78 runs.
On the other hand, the big-hitting Sunrisers were shot out for 120 and were handed their biggest loss in IPL history, with respect to the margin, by 80 runs. Iyer, who was coming into IPL 2025 with a big price tag, had low scores in the first couple of games before firing at the death with the bat, scoring 60 off 29. Iyer also took a shot at SRH while defining what aggression means to him saying that being positive is good but the intent should also be correct and not careless.
“It’s very important for us to show positive but correct intent,” Iyer said at the post-match press conference while reiterating that assessing the situation is also important. “If we are 50 for 6 and I still go and tonk everything, that’s positive, but that’s not correct.
“Aggression does not mean tonking every ball for sixes. It’s about how you understand the conditions, how you are able to maximize the conditions in your favour. And that is what aggression actually is.
“We don’t want to be the team that scores 250 when we’re playing well and when we’re not, we get out for 70. “We want to be a team who understands the pitch and the conditions quickly. To assess the par score and try to make 20 runs above par,” Iyer added. Sunrisers have now lost three matches in a row where their two big-hitting openers and combined with Ishan Kishan at No 3 have failed to fire with the bat after having begun the tournament by piling on 286 against the Rajasthan Royals.
Iyer mentioned that during the second time-out, Rahane told him and Rinku that it wasn’t easy for a new batter to come in and start hitting on that wicket so for the lanky southpaw “it was important for us not to chew a few balls, but to take time to understand what the pitch has to offer.”
“And I have that luxury because we have Rinku [Singh], Ramandeep [Singh] and [Andre] Russell in the backend,” Iyer mentioned while saying that he was confident in his ability that even if he did take up some balls, he had the power to cover it up with the rest of guys to come. “We still have our engine room who can demolish any bowling attack. So the plan was to understand the pitch first and then react accordingly.”