Kolkata Knight Riders are spoiled for choice as far as the opening combination goes in the upcoming IPL 2026. They have two marquee overseas cricketers in Finn Allen and Tim Seifert for the slot and among Indians, Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi are two solid options. They also have Rachin Ravindra in the mix, who had a decent run in the T20 World Cup. Amid this, the three-time champions also have Sunil Narine, who is one of their successful openers in history.
However, KKR havenโt finalised their opening combination yet. Captain Rahane is expected to take the call after the team plays a couple of intra-squad matches before their opening game against Mumbai Indians on March 29 at the Wankhede Stadium. In the meantime, he showered praises on the batting unit, mentioning that the players are in good touch at the moment.
โThe batting group which we have is amazing. Most of the batters are in good form, guys from overseas are also in good nick. They had a very good World Cup as well. Frankly, I am not going to tell you the line-up we are going to go with but all the batters who are here at the moment are in good nick and we started out camp two days ago. Really excited for the season and the combination, we will see how it goes,โ Rahane said in the press conference facilitated by JioStar.
Sarthak Ranjan, Tim Seifert impress in intra-squad match
Batting at number three, Sarthak Ranjan proved his mettle in the intra-squad match, scoring 37 runs off 16 balls. Opener Seifert also handed a cracking start. However, his opening partner Rachin, failed to live up to the expectation, as he made only four runs before Vaibhav Arora got the better of him. Rahul Tripathi, who batted at number four, made 17 runs off 14 balls before Varun Chakravarthy got the better of him.
Rinku Singh, on the other hand, played some blistering cricket in the middle. He made 40 runsย before Karik Tyagi got the better of him in the 18th over.ย ย
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