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Nobody really gave Ajinkya Rahane the benefit of the doubt heading into this season. The captaincy felt like a safe choice rather than an inspired one. The opening batter role felt like a gamble on a player whose best days in the highest form of the game had passed. And then Sunday happened at the Wankhede during MI vs KKR and all of that got quietly set aside.
67 not out off 40 balls. Five sixes. Three fours. Fifty reached in 27 balls. Against Mumbai Indians. In a season opener. With every question about whether Ajinkya Rahane still belongs at this level sitting in the crowd waiting to be answered.
The thing about Ajinkya Rahane is that people forget he has actually been in decent nick. The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy this season, 391 runs in 10 innings, strike rate of 161.57, the highest run-scorer in the competition. The form was there. The Wankhede just gave it a stage that mattered.
Where the KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane's innings came from and where it went
Powerplay was something else. Strike rate of 200, the kind of opening burst that tells opposition captains their plans are already irrelevant.
Ajinkya Rahane in the first six overs has always been dangerous, 187.40 in IPL 2025 compared to 110.94 after them, and tonight the contrast showed itself again. Once the field spread and Cameron Green fell, the tempo dropped.
Batter who had looked completely in control started to carry the weight of the innings rather than impose himself on it. It is the one thing KKR will need him to solve as the season goes on, not the start, which takes care of itself, but the sustained aggression once the easy phase is over.
IPL 2026: The record Gautam Gambhir held against MI that Rahane just took away at Wankhede
67 not out is the highest score a KKR captain has ever made against Mumbai Indians in IPL history. That number puts him ahead of Gautam Gambhir's 64 off 52 at Eden Gardens in April 2016, and Gambhir is the man who gave this franchise its identity, its two titles, its belief in itself. Ajinkya Rahane is not Gambhir. Nobody is suggesting that.
But on a Sunday evening at the Wankhede, in the match that opens a new season and answers old questions, he produced a captain's innings that belongs in that same conversation. The doubts are not gone. One innings does not erase a pattern. But they are considerably quieter than they were 40 balls ago.
Rahane sets the tone, Raghuvanshi takes over the middle overs and Rinku finishes the job
Sunday evening at the Wankhede belonged to Kolkata Knight Riders so far and the innings break score of 220 for 4 tells you exactly why. Mumbai Indians won the toss and chose to field, and for large parts of the KKR innings they will be wondering why.
Ajinkya Rahane settled every question about his credentials in 40 balls, fifty in 27, eventually dismissed for 67 off 40 by Shardul Thakur after five sixes and three fours at a strike rate of 167.50. Finn Allen combined with him for a brutal 69-run opening stand before becoming Thakur's second victim for 37 off 17 balls, KKR already at 78 for 1 after six overs.
Cameron Green came and went for 18 off 10, Thakur taking his third, and at 109 for 2 in the ninth over Mumbai had some hope. Angkrish Raghuvanshi took it away. The young wicketkeeper made 51 off 29 balls, six fours and two sixes, before Pandya had him caught by Tilak Varma in the 19th over, the fourth wicket falling at 205.
Rinku Singh was unbeaten on 33 off 21 at the close with Ramandeep Singh on 4 alongside him. Bumrah was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 4-0-35-1, the most economical of the lot. Thakur took three wickets but went for 39. Boult, Pandya and Ghazanfar all struggled to contain a KKR batting lineup that lost only four wickets across twenty overs. Mumbai need something very special in the chase.
