A day ahead of the face-off between last year's finalists - Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad - the points table is making for an interesting read. KKR, Rajasthan Royals and SRH find themselves as the bottom three teams, exactly opposite to how they finished in the league stage last season.
IPL 2025
Bravo cautions against pressing panic button early
Bravo has called for patience following KKR's nervy start. © BCCI
"We aren't the only teams after three matches in this position," KKR's newly appointed mentor Dwayne Bravo noted ahead of the clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad. It's true. KKR have won one in three games, exactly as many as Lucknow Super Giants, Chennai Super Kings, RR and SRH. The points table isn't saying much beyond how emphatic those losses or victories have been for the teams in the second half of the table.
These are still early days in the competition, with each of the five teams playing only three games each, but the merits of a mega-auction overhaul to retain the balance of the sides are on display, even if at the disappointment of a few.
KKR though haven't had much of a shuffle. The Playing XII is largely still intact, with Phil Salt making way for Quinton de Kock, Ajinkya Rahane replacing Shreyas Iyer and Spencer Johnson filling in for Mitchell Starc. In several ways, like-for-like. Yet, they are unable to replicate the pattern which had yielded them immense success last season.
A good reason for that is the poor form of the batters. KKR's bet on Sunil Narine's explosiveness at the top had over-delivered for them. On either side of the IPL 2024 season, his batting returns haven't been of high value, averaging 10.06 for a year before the tournament and 8.33 thereafter.
Not only are they losing more wickets in this phase, their scoring rate has also dipped from 11.25 to 7.83. It's not a new problem though. They had the worst-performing top order in IPL 2022 and 2023 as well, being the only team to average below 20 for the opening partnership and scoring under 7.50 per over for the first wicket in this period. They utilised 14 different opening
