New Delhi: The defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are seen returning to bad days in IPL 2025. The team, which won the title in the year 2024, performed very poorly in the IPL season of 2022 and 2023. In both these years, KKR was at number 7. KKR was then held most responsible for his poor performance. In IPL 2022 and 2023, KKR's opening partnership average was less than 20. KKR was then the only team that scored less than 7.50 runs per over for the first wicket. In IPL 2025, KKR's opening partnership is harassing fans. After three matches, his opening partnership average is 15.33.
The team's think-tank tried the old rice as Sunil Naren in 2024 when Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) failed for two consecutive years. In 2024, KKR launched Phil Salt of England with Sunil Naren as an opener. While Phil Soult is good against fast bowlers, Sunil Naren mastered sending spinners across the boundary. This was the same strategy that Gautam Gambhir tried in the 2017 IPL. In the year 2017, Gambhir was the captain of the team and Mentor in 2024. Therefore, Sunil also took all the credit for the success of the pair of Naren-Fil Salt.
The success of 2024 is now history and the opening partnership in 2025 is becoming a headache for KKR. Phil Soult is now opening with Virat Kohli for Royal Challengers Bangalore instead of KKR. Sunil Naren's opening partner for KKR is now Quinton Dickock of South Africa. Both Dickock and Naren have played one innings well, but then the team lost the wicket from the other end.
KKR has played three matches in IPL 2025, of which his biggest opening partnership was 41 runs. In this too, Quinton Dickock (97) kept taking a front alone because Moin Ali was dismissed for 5 runs in 12 balls at the other end. In the two matches in which Dickock and Sunil Naren came to open as an opening, both of them had 4 and 1 runs respectively. KKR's first wicket against Mumbai Indians fell on one run and fell for four against RCB. That is, in the partnership of Sunil Naren-Dickock, only 5 runs have been scored.
Sunil Naren, who scored 488 runs at an average of 34.86 in IPL 2024 and 180.74 strike rate, has been angry for almost a year. Sunil Naren has been able to score only 175 runs in 25 matches in different T20 leagues since June 2024. During this time his average was 8.33 and the strike rate was 123.23. In IPL 2025, Sunil Naren has scored 44 runs in 2 innings so far, out of which his account has not been opened once. Quinton Dickock scored 4, 97 and one run in three matches respectively.
