Kolkata Knight Riders have endured a rough start to IPL 2026, playing five matches with no victories to show for it. Their only point so far has come from a washout, and aside from the narrow defeat to Lucknow Super Giants decided on the last ball, the performances have not looked like title-calibre T20 cricket.
Concerns are stacking up across departments. Their pace resources are thinned, one of their main spin options is not producing consistently, and the batting has repeatedly lacked the tempo needed in high-pressure chases. Even with Sunil Narine handed the role of opener, Aaron Finch felt the process still had gaps, saying some of their tactics were “very questionable” during the Tuesday night clash against Chennai Super Kings (CSK), despite the chase being set at 193 to win.
The chase never really took off. Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi did put together a partnership of 50 off 31 balls, but Finch’s view was that it did not add meaningful difference to the way the innings was being played—especially in a scenario where the game demanded more aggressive pressure.
Finch: “Certainly wasn’t pretty”
- KKR have won 0 of their first 5 IPL 2026 matches.
- They earned 1 point due to a washout.
- The only very close contest mentioned is vs Lucknow Super Giants, decided on the last ball.
- Finch said some of KKR’s tactics against CSK were “very questionable.”
- KKR were set 193 to chase in the CSK game.
- Rahane and Raghuvanshi’s partnership: 50 runs off 31 balls.
Finch, speaking on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show after the match, summed it up as a difficult watch: “Certainly wasn’t pretty.” He highlighted that there were “a lot of question marks” around KKR’s approach during the run chase, even while acknowledging the experimentation of moving Narine up the order.
“We praised the decision for Sunil Narine to go to the top of the order,” Finch said. “It didn’t come off today [24 in 17 balls], but it was something different. At least they tried it.”
However, Finch believed other choices were harder to justify. He pointed out that KKR were never truly in the hunt, and he also questioned the logic of the batting pairing—especially Rahane and Raghuvanshi together—describing it as a stalling influence. While he felt the partnership itself was not disastrous, he argued it did not force the opposition to make serious tactical changes.
“They don’t take the bowling on,” Finch said. “They don’t get to a point where the opposition captain has to make some serious decisions about reshuffling their team.”
Will Narine keep opening?
A key question now is whether KKR will stick with Narine as an opener. Finch’s comments came with context: as recently as IPL 2024—the season KKR won—Narine had opened regularly and produced 488 runs at a strike rate of 180.74.
Tim Southee, KKR’s bowling coach, offered a squad-depth perspective when asked about the decision-making around the top of the order. Speaking at the press conference after the game, he said KKR were willing to explore options because results have not been coming, adding that the IPL rewards experimentation within a team’s resources.
“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,” Southee said. “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.”
In the CSK match, KKR’s top order featured Narine and Finn Allen. Allen managed just 1 run, and his recent sequence of scores now reads 37, 28, 6, 9 and 1. Cameron Green batted at No. 6 in this game, and the pattern suggests KKR have already been shifting him around this season—he has not stayed at the same spot in consecutive matches, with returns of 18, 2, 4, 32* and 0.
There is also another name waiting in the dugout: Tim Seifert. With Rachin Ravindra also in the mix—though Finch had earlier implied he does not bring the same kind of explosive firepower—KKR will ask a practical question: if they revise the batting setup, who comes in for Green?
Finch suggested the decision to place Green at No. 6 was unusual. “To Cameron Green batting at No. 6, that’s an unusual position for him,” he said. “I don’t think he’s done that a huge amount in T20 cricket.”
Green has, in fact, batted at that number only nine times in T20s out of 68 total innings at the format level. The last time he did so was in 2024—yet KKR paid INR 25.20 crore for him at the auction, a fact that adds another layer to the debate, even if form and role fit ultimately matter more than price tags.
Green’s role under scrutiny
Finch pointed to the match-up problem as well. “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,” he said. He stressed that selection should not be driven by the amount paid for a player. “I don’t think you ever pick a team on price tags. That would be really ignorant to do that.”
Finch argued that auction value is about what a team believes the player can deliver, but it does not automatically mean the player should be placed anywhere in the batting order. “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.”
He also linked the discussion to the availability of Seifert. “You’ve got Seifert sitting in the wings, he’s a specialist opener,” Finch said. “Cameron Green hasn’t played a huge amount of T20 cricket [recently, because of injuries]. 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.”
Finch’s pitch for Seifert was that his tools suit different phases of an innings. “Who’s got the scoops, he’s got the ramps, he’s got a lot of different options,” he added. He then framed the selection debate in terms of captaincy planning: a player like Seifert requires multiple layers of thought from the opposing captain because the skill set allows for different attacking angles.
“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,” Finch said. “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 assignment comes on Friday, with the team travelling to Ahmedabad to face Gujarat Titans.
