Kolkata Knight Riders: IPL 2025 Preview

Where they finished last year

Kolkata Knight Riders ended up as champions. They topped the points table with nine victories, three defeats, and two washed-out games. After already claiming victory against Sunrisers Hyderabad in what was their opening game of the season, they triumphed against the same opponents in Qualifier 1 and the final via convincing eight-wicket margins, respectively.

What’s new in 2025?

The freshly-instated captain, Ajinkya Rahane, is expected to slot into one of the two vacancies, previously occupied by Shreyas Iyer and Nitish Rana. Rahmanullah Gurbaz seems to be a perfect backup opener for Quinton de Kock. The all-around prowess of Moeen Ali and Rovman Powell will help too.

Spencer Johnson replacing Mitchell Starc promises to be an exciting development while Anrich Nortje seems a more feasible candidate for the overseas pacer’s spot. Dwayne Bravo and Ottis Gibson are the recent appointments in the backroom staff.

Watch out for

Rahane was the leading run-getter in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2024 with 469 runs in eight innings. It would be of great help to KKR if Rahane could carry forward his form into IPL 2025. Sunil Narine and Andre Russell have not had the best of forms in T20 cricket coming into the IPL. They had quite lackluster ILT20 seasons according to their liking. It will be interesting to see whether how the two West Indians turn up.

Full squad

Ajinkya Rahane (c), Rinku Singh, Quinton de Kock, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Ramandeep Singh, Andre Russell, Anrich Nortje, Harshit Rana, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, Vaibhav Arora, Mayank Markande, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Spencer Johnson, Luvnith Sisodia, Anukul Roy, Moeen Ali, Chetan Sakariya

Probable XII

Sunil Narine, Quinton de Kock (wk), Ajinkya Rahane (c), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Spencer Johnson/Anrich Nortje, Varun Chakravarthy, Vaibhav Arora