Why KKR Promoted Ramandeep Singh Over Rinku And Russell In IPL 2025 Match Vs LSG?

Why KKR promoted Ramandeep? [Source: @KKR_Xtra/x.com]

The Kolkata Knight Riders lost against Lucknow Super Giants by the barest of margins as they suffered a narrow 4-run defeat at the Eden Gardens on Tuesday. The Ajinkya Rahane led side made some huge tactical mistakes and it led to a loss against the LSG side and these blunders could come and cost KKR.

Out of his several blunders, the major one was promoting Ramandeep Singh at number 5 ahead of Rinku Singh and Andre Russell.

Why KKR promoted Ramandeep?

1) To take on the spinners

Last season, Ramandeep Singh had a breakout season for the KKR and had a strike-rate of 142.9 against the spinners. When he came out to bat at number 5, Ravi Bishnoi and Digvesh Rathi were operating from the two ends and KKR perhaps wanted him to take advantage of the situation and counter the two spinners.

(Ramandeep stats vs spin in IPL 2024)

As the numbers suggests, he was impeccable against the spinners and both Digvesh and Bishnoi love to bowl googly, which comes naturally into the right-handers. For a lefty like Rinku Singh, the same ball will move away which makes it difficult for them to connect. Hence, Rahane wanted Ramandeep to take advantage of it.

2) An opportunity to prove his worth

As stated, Ramandeep had an outstanding IPL 2024 for KKR, and this game was a perfect platform for the batter to showcase his batting and take KKR home.

For KKR, the likes of Rinku Singh and Andre Russell have finished ample number of matches, but Ramandeep had an opportunity to emulate the same feat, but he couldn't do that. This was more like a trust shown by the skipper towards the talented batter.

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