Ajinkya Rahane smacks half-century against RCB with 94% boundary rate

Kolkata Knight Riders captain Ajinkya Rahane played a blistering knock against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the opening game of the IPL 2025. The defending champions suffered an early blow as keeper-batter Quinton de Kock departed early, scoring four runs. It however didn’t bother Rahane as he dominated the RCB bowlers right from the beginning. The 36-year-old wreaked havoc and smashed his third-quickest half-century in IPL history.

Rahane completed his half-century in just 25 balls. Interestingly, 94% of his shots resulted in a boundary, which is phenomenal, to say the least. Even after reaching the milestone, the cricketer didn’t change his approach as KKR managed a cracking start in their opening game of the season. Nevertheless, he eventually departed scoring 56 runs off 31 balls. Krunal Pandya got the better of him as he attempted for another boundary but it went straight to Rasik Salam Dar, who was stationed at the deep backward-squared leg.

Sunil Narine, who had a rather quiet start, ended up playing a cracking knock as well. The all-rounder was struggling against Josh Hazlewood and Yash Dayal but once he found momentum, it proved difficult for the RCB batter to stop him in the middle. He attempted to play all the balls and found some success, scoring 44 runs off 26 balls. Rasik Salam got the better of him while Narine attempted to play another shot in the air. He edged that one as Jitesh Sharma clinched a simple catch.

After losing two back-to-back wickets, KKR had to pull the break. The management decided to bring in Angkrish Raghuvanshi at five, which was a strange decision, given that the team could have introduced Rinku Singh at that stage, who could have kept the onslaught going. The pressure will be now on the duo to keep the scoreboard ticking and put the team in a better position before the finishers take centre stage.