By Prakash Nair 
Kolkata, April 6: Nobody told Ajinkya Rahane that every KKR captain in IPL 2026 has been bowling first at the toss.
Or maybe someone did, and he just did not care.
Either way, Rahane won the toss tonight at Eden Gardens and called batting. Just like that. The crowd sort of murmured. The commentators paused for a second. And then, before anyone could really process what had happened or why, Xavier Bartlett was running in, and KKR were losing wickets.
And then the rain came.
That is roughly where we are right now with this match. Twenty-five runs on the board, two wickets gone, covers on the pitch, ground staff running everywhere, and 68,000 people sitting in their seats staring at the sky, wondering if they are going home having watched four overs of cricket.
First Things First. Narine and Chakravarthy Are Both Out Tonight
Before we even get to what happened on the pitch, we need to talk about what happened before the match started.
KKR came here tonight without Sunil Narine. And without Varun Chakravarthy. At the same time.
Chakravarthy hurt his hand while taking a catch in the previous game against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Rahane confirmed it at the toss. Narine is sick. Just unwell, cannot play. These things happen in cricket, players get injured, players fall ill, it is part of the game.
But the timing of this one is genuinely cruel for KKR.
Think about it this way. This is a team that was already in trouble before tonight. They have lost both their games this season. Their bowling attack is already missing four frontline pace bowlers because of injuries and Cricket Australia restrictions. And now, on the night they absolutely need to win or the season starts to feel like it is slipping away, they also lose the two spinners who are supposed to be their main weapons in the middle overs.
Rovman Powell came in for Narine. Navdeep Saini came in for Chakravarthy. Both are fine cricketers. But this is a bit like losing your two best chefs before a dinner service and replacing them with people who mostly do breakfast.
Punjab Kings on the other side made no changes at all. Not one. Same team that beat Chennai Super Kings. Came here settled, confident, and completely unchanged.
Then Bartlett Happened
The match started well enough. Arshdeep Singh opened the bowling for Punjab, Rahane and Allen walked out, and for a few deliveries, it looked like a normal game of cricket.
Bartlett came on in the second over, and it stopped looking like a normal game of cricket very quickly.
Finn Allen is KKR’s big powerplay hitter. He is the man they need to go after the bowling early and put pressure on the opposition before the field spreads. He has been doing it reasonably well this season, even if he has not always lasted long enough to make a real difference. Tonight, he got six runs off seven balls and then pushed at a delivery from Bartlett that shaped away from him outside off stump. Thick edge. Straight into the gloves of Prabhsimran Singh behind the wicket. Gone.
Two balls later, Cameron Green did almost the same thing. Different batter, same story. Pushed at it, got an edge, Prabhsimran took it cleanly. Four runs off two balls. Out.
Two wickets in the same over. KKR sixteen for two. The second over is still not finished.
Rahane and Raghuvanshi came together and did their best to stop the bleeding. They got the score to twenty-five without losing anyone else. Raghuvanshi, in particular, looked okay, unhurried, picking his shots sensibly the way he has done in every game this season. He is genuinely the one KKR batter who turns up looking like he has a plan every single time.
Then the rain started.
About the Rain
Look, the weather forecast for Kolkata tonight was never great. Anyone who checked before coming to the ground knew there was a decent chance of showers. Thunderstorms had been predicted since the afternoon. There was always going to be a question mark over how much cricket would actually get played tonight.
Still, it is one thing to know rain is possible and another thing entirely to watch the covers come on after four overs when your team is already two down and desperately trying to find some momentum.
The cut-off time is 11:14 PM tonight for the minimum five-over game. So it is not over yet. If the rain stops, if the ground dries out quickly enough, there will be some cricket. It will be shorter than twenty overs. DLS will apply. The targets and the overs will be recalculated. Whatever total KKR manages to put up will be adjusted into something Punjab needs to chase in whatever time is left.
For KKR, the break is probably a slight relief if we are being honest. Coming back out to bat with a settled pair at the crease after a rain delay is slightly better than what was happening before it. Bartlett was on a hat-trick, the crowd was starting to go quiet in that worried way Eden Gardens crowds go quiet when things are not going well, and the momentum was completely with Punjab.
The delay resets things a little. Not entirely, but a little.
What This Team Looks Like Without Its Spinners
Here is the honest conversation that needs to happen about tonight’s KKR bowling attack.
Without Narine and Chakravarthy, the plan to take wickets in the middle overs basically does not exist. Anukul Roy is a left-arm spinner who bowls tidily and can be useful in the right conditions. But he is not the kind of bowler who makes batters look confused and uncomfortable the way Narine and Chakravarthy do at their best.
The pace bowling has Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi, and Navdeep Saini. They are all decent enough. None of them are going to terrify a Punjab batting lineup that includes Shreyas Iyer, Cooper Connolly, Marcus Stoinis, and potentially Priyansh Arya coming in as the impact sub.
Arya, by the way, hit 39 off eleven balls in the last game. Against Chennai. Walked in, demolished the bowling attack in roughly the time it takes to make a cup of tea, and walked back having effectively won the match. If he comes in tonight with a target in sight, against a bowling attack missing its two best options, that is a very uncomfortable thought for KKR supporters.
The Playing Elevens
KKR tonight: Finn Allen, Ajinkya Rahane, the captain, Cameron Green, Angkrish Raghuvanshi keeping wicket, Rovman Powell, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Navdeep Saini, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi.
Punjab tonight: Prabhsimran Singh, Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer, the captain, Shashank Singh, Nehal Wadhera, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal. Priyansh Arya is the impact sub, and he will come in when Punjab bats; you can be almost certain of that.
So, Where Does This Leave Us
Rahane and Raghuvanshi are in the middle waiting to come back out. Twenty-five on the board, two down, many overs are left in the revised game. They need to bat well when play resumes. They need a proper partnership. They need Rinku Singh to come in later and do what he does. And then they need their makeshift bowling attack to somehow restrict a Punjab side that has been scoring freely against everyone.
It is a lot to ask.
There is a version of tonight where the rain stays heavy enough that the whole thing gets called off and both teams share a point. For KKR, that would not be the worst outcome right now, given how the first few overs looked.
There is another version where the rain clears, they get eight or ten overs a side, KKR scramble to something around a hundred, and Punjab knock it off inside six overs, and everyone goes home shaking their heads about what has happened to this once-great franchise.
And then there is the version KKR fans are hoping for, where Raghuvanshi bats beautifully, Rinku finds some form, they get to something competitive, and somehow their bowling holds things together long enough for the home crowd to have a night to remember.
Right now, the rain is falling on Eden Gardens, and none of those outcomes feels particularly close to certain.
That is about as honest as it gets tonight.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
