Five games. Zero wins. One point thanks to a washout. Bar the game against Lucknow Super Giants, which went down to the last ball, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) haven’t looked like they were going to win any of their other matches in IPL 2026.
Their pace attack is depleted. One of their two primary spinners is out of form. Their batting just doesn’t seem to have the firepower. And, as Aaron Finch put it, “some of their tactics were very questionable” against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Tuesday night, even if opening the batting with Sunil Narine suggested some thinking behind the scenes. But if that was in response to being set 193 to win and a positive step, Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi in their partnership – 50 in 31 balls – showed little enterprise.
“Certainly wasn’t pretty,” Finch said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show after the game. “A lot of question marks about KKR, particularly in that run chase. Some of their tactics were very questionable. We praised the decision for Sunil Narine to go to the top of the order. It didn’t come off today [24 in 17 balls], but it was something different. At least they tried it.
“But some of the other decisions were a bit strange. And they were never in the hunt. We talked about Rahane and Raghuvanshi batting together, about how that can be such a stalling [factor]. And their partnership wasn’t bad, but there’s still no point of difference in that partnership. They don’t take the bowling on. They don’t get to a point where the opposition captain has to make some serious decisions about reshuffling their team.”
Is it likely that Narine will continue to open? As recently as IPL 2024 – which KKR won – Narine had opened the innings regularly, and scored 488 runs at a strike rate of 180.74.
“He’s obviously had a lot of success in the batting for Kolkata in the IPL, so I guess we’ve got a lot of options at the top of the order, and then we thought we’d try something different in this game,” Tim Southee, KKR’s bowling coach, said at the press conference after the match. “I think, obviously when you’re losing, you can look at a number of different options. And yeah, I guess that’s the beauty of the IPL, to test the depth of your squad.”
On Tuesday, KKR opened with Narine and Finn Allen. Allen scored 1. He now has scores of 37, 28, 6, 9 and 1. Cameron Green, who batted at No. 6 in this game, has not batted at the same spot two games in a row this season, and has scores of 18, 2, 4, 32* and 0. They have Tim Seifert – as well as Rachin Ravindra, who doesn’t promise much firepower either – on the bench, but who does he replace?
“When you’ve got as much experience in that dugout, you think that they’d be at least making the right calls at the right time,” Finch said. “To Cameron Green batting at No. 6, that’s an unusual position for him. I don’t think he’s done that a huge amount in T20 cricket.”
He hasn’t. Green has batted just nine times at that number out of the 68 times he has batted in T20s. The last time was in 2024. But Green was an INR 25.20 crore buy at the auction. He is out of touch, but is dropping him even an option?
“Starting against two spinners [Akeal Hosein and Noor Ahmad], he only lasted one ball. But that’s his worst nightmare, walking out to bat [against spin], particularly in a run chase,” Finch said. “I don’t think you ever pick a team on price tags. That would be really ignorant to do that. Because buying at the auction is a supply and demand of a skill set that you bring. It’s not about, well, we have to play this guy because we paid this much for him. He’s playing out of position. His best numbers have been at the top of the order.”
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IPL 2026 – Finch – KKR’s tactics against CSK were questionable
Aaron Finch on KKR’s need for a re-shuffle in their batting order
Finch wanted KKR to try Seifert. Likely in place of Green.
“You’ve got Seifert sitting in the wings, he’s a specialist opener. Cameron Green hasn’t played a huge amount of T20 cricket [recently, because of injuries],” Finch said. “So you’ve got a guy there who brings a good skill set and really good form in Seifert, coming off a good [T20] World Cup. Who’s got the scoops, he’s got the ramps, he’s got a lot of different options.
“He is a player that you have to do multiple stages of planning for when you’re a captain coming up against someone like him, because he’s got so many different skills. So I think that there is a time when you just have to say, you know what, it hasn’t worked just yet. That’s not to say that it’s done and dusted for the tournament, but I think that it gets to a point where you go, right, we need to rejig our side and rethink about how we’re structuring it up.”
KKR’s next game on Friday, away in Ahmedabad against Gujarat Titans.
