Ajinkya Rahane, captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders, took a dig at the Eden Gardens pitch curator but also refused to fuel the controversy around the pitch. Stating that curator Sujan Mukherjee has already gained a lot of publicity by talking to the media, Ajinkya Rahane said that he would rather keep quiet than blow up the controversy further.
KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane had expressed his desire to see the Kolkata pitch offer more assistance to his spinners after they endured a defeat in the IPL 2025 season opener against Royal Challengers Bengaluru last week. In response to Ajinkya Rahane’s plea, Eden Gardens pitch curator Sujan Mukherjee reportedly said the franchise don’t have any say in how the surface should behave. Mukherjee also claimed that till the time he’s in charge, the nature of the pitch will not change.
The nature of the track at Kolkata’s home venue has been in discussion ever since skipper Ajinkya Rahane wished to get more support for his spinners at the Eden Gardens.
Eden Gardens Curator’s U-Turn After Row Over Denying KKR Captain Ajinkya Rahane’s Pitch Request
Sujan Mukherjee, a pitch curator at Eden Gardens, has been receiving a lot of backlash after denying Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain Ajinkya Rahane’s request to prepare a spin-friendly track. Following KKR’s big loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the opening match of IPL 2025, Ajinkya Rahane expressed his frustration over the pitch used for the game, and hoped to see spin-friendly track at the Eden Gardens.
“We would love to see the pitch helping the spin bowlers but again, this wicket was under cover for the last one-and-a-half days. Both the spinners we have, the quality they have, they can bowl in any kind of wicket and I am sure they are confident as well,” Ajinkya Rahane was quoted as saying after the match.
“As per the IPL rules and regulations, franchises have no say over the pitch. Ever since I have taken charge (as Eden curator), the pitches here have been like this. It was like this in the past. Things haven’t changed now, and it will not be altered in the future,” Mukherjee told Revsportz.
“Their (RCB) spinners took four wickets between them. What did the KKR spinners do Krunal Pandya got three wickets. Suyash Sharma turned the ball to castle Andre Russell,”
However, Mukherjee, who has been facing a lot of flak over his remarks, has backtracked from his previous remarks, saying that he never denied any request from KKR. However, nothing much changed after a week as Kolkata Knight Riders on the flattest of wickets lost to LSG by a mere 4 runs in chase ofa mammoth 239 runs.
KKR lost to LSG by mere 4 runs
While the pitch is under scrutiny, KKR’s own decisions during the match against LSG have come into question. Chasing a massive target of 239, KKR surprisingly held back their most explosive batters. Andre Russell came in at No.7, and Rinku Singh was sent out at No.8, even though both are known for their ability to change games in a matter of overs.
Instead, Angkrish Raghuvanshi and Ramandeep Singh were promoted up the order, with the left-right combination theory cited as a possible reason. However, when the required run rate was already soaring, the decision to send big hitters so late looked questionable. Rinku Singh did score an unbeaten 38 off just 15 balls, but it came too late to affect the result and didn’t get ample support.
Ajinkya Rahane’s comment about the pitch may highlight a genuine concern, but it’s fair to ask whether KKR’s own choices during the game played a bigger part in their loss. The call to delay the arrival of their best finishers in a steep chase arguably had a greater impact than the surface itself.
There has been enough talk about the wicket- Ajinkya Rahane
Ajinkya Rahane was asked point-blank about what is ‘home advantage’ for a side in the Indian Premier League (IPL) after Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) suffered their second defeat at Eden Gardens, a narrow 4-run loss to Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in an IPL 2025 match on Tuesday.
“There has been enough talk about the wicket. Mai kuch bolunga toh bawaal ho jayega (if I say anything, it will cause a controversy),” Rahane said in reply at the post-match press conference.
“Let me just keep it that way. Our curator (Sujan Mukherjee) has got a lot of publicity. I think he’s happy with that publicity. You (the media) can write whatever you want about the home advantage. If I feel like it, I’ll tell the IPL team rather than talking here. I’ll talk to the concerned authorities,” he added.
After beating Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on a dryish-looking pitch, which had reportedly not been watered for days, the attention ahead of KKR’s clash against LSG was again on the playing surface – not the one used for their previous game but the adjacent one.
On the eve of the match, the pitch was watered and appeared to have much more grass to hold the surface together. What was expected to be a turner turned out to be a belter.
A total of 472 runs were scored across 40 overs – KKR managed 234/7 in reply to LSG’s 238/3. What did not help to stem the flow of runs was the lopsided nature of the dimensions in play.
“Firstly, there was no help for the spinners, let me clear that,”
 Ajinkya Rahane said, as his call to bowl first did not go according to plan with LSG batters avoiding KKR’s ploy of targeting the shorter side.
“They used the boundary really well, you know, bowling to the longer boundary, they did that really well, our bowlers tried as well, but again, (Nicholas) Pooran and Mitchell Marsh batted really well in between, they took their chances which came off really well for them,” Rahane explained.
“It was a lovely wicket, we all saw that, scoring almost 500 runs on this track, hard for the bowlers, but again, they used the conditions and used the boundary really well,” he added.
LSG did use the ‘local’ conditions better than the ‘home’ side. KKR’s spinners Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy failed to take a wicket and went for runs, so much so that the West Indian maestro didn’t even complete his quota of four overs.
Digvesh Singh Rathi and Ravi Bishnoi of LSG managed to pick up two crucial wickets between them and also bowled the 18th and 20th overs in the second innings. KKR will need to look inward and align both their tactics and pitch preferences if they want to make better use of their home conditions going forward.
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