Former India cricketer Virender Sehwag has stated that the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) should have learned from the Lucknow Super Giants and ensured that their big hitters came before the captain in the batting order, rather than the other way around, and that some poor decisions by the management contributed to their failure.
Kolkata's batting suffered greatly as a result of the IPL 2025 big auction, which saw Phil Salt and Shreyas Iyer sign with rival teams.
Sehwag referenced Lucknow and the Chennai Super Kings as two noteworthy examples of teams that altered their batting order in search of the perfect mix.
“It is not written anywhere that a captain has to bat in the top three. Look at Pant, he was sending players ahead of him, because they were in form, and LSG took advantage of that. KKR could have done the same. This was the team management and the coaching staff’s responsibility. See, even CSK did it against GT. Shivam Dube and Dewald Brevis came up in the order, they changed that up from the recent matches," Sehwag said on Cricbuzz.
Kolkata finished ninth in the points standings, with 12 points and a net run rate of -0.3.
Meanwhile, Sunrisers Hyderabad capped off an Indian Premier League season of 'what ifs' with a power-packed batting performance, defeating Kolkata by 110 runs. They finished in 6th spot with 6 wins from 4 matches and 13 points to their name.
