Kolkata Knight Riders ended their IPL 2025 campaign with a massive 110-run loss at the hands of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). After the match, their captain, Ajinkya Rahan,e admitted that it was a season of ups and downs and vowed to come back stronger next year.
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) entered IPL 2025 as the defending champions, but they were inconsistent right through. Eventually, they were knocked out of the tournament, finishing in eighth place with only five wins from 14 matches. To make things worse, they ended their campaign with their worst defeat ever in IPL history, losing to Sunrisers Hyderabad by 110 runs.
After the match, KKR skipper Ajinkya Rahane admitted that it wasn’t their season this time around and has vowed to come back stronger next year. “See, this season, I think for us, was kind of 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.
“But again, this format, that’s how it goes, you know. If you win close matches, those are the difference. And Kings XI Punjab game, LSG game and also the CSK game, I thought those 2-3 games could have been slightly different. But I thought, as a captain, what I saw, what I felt, that preparation-wise, everyone tried their best, really best. It’s not easy when you win a championship and come into the next season, defending the championship.
“As a team, we tried our best. What I can say is, we’ll come back really stronger next year,” Rahane said after the match. One of the major concerns for KKR in IPL 2025 was their most expensive pick, Venkatesh Iyer’s form who was dropped in the end for the last few matches. However, Rahane defended him stating Iyer was training hard on his part, just that the results were not there to be seen.
“What I can say is, you know, if a player gets 20 plus crore or if a player gets 1 or 2 crore or 3 or 4 crore, your attitude doesn’t change on the field. That’s what matters. As a player, you only focus on the controllable things. And I felt Venkatesh Iyer was actually focusing on the controllable things.
“He was practising hard, you know, doing, trying his best, even during the games, whichever matches he played before getting injured. I thought he did really well. It’s just that for us as a team, 3-4 guys was out of form. That was the only reason I thought we struggled this year. But your attitude doesn’t change. You know, someone’s not going to work doubly harder if he’s getting 20 plus crore or someone’s not going to work less harder when he’s getting 1, 2, 3 crore, whatever it is,” the KKR captain added.
