What a difference one year makes in the Indian Premier League (IPL). From becoming the team to chase down the highest target in IPL history in 2024, Punjab Kings became the side to defend the lowest total in the league this year, incidentally, against the same side - Kolkata Knight Riders. The Ajinkya Rahane-led Knight Riders fell short of reaching the target of 112 runs despite brave efforts by Angkrish Raghuvanshi and Andre Russell. In the end, it was the Shreyas Iyer-led Punjab who triumphed, thanks to Yuzvendra Chahal's 4-wicket haul.
On a spicy pitch that offered variable bounce to bowlers, both sets of batters struggled to score runs, producing a low-scoring thriller that went down in the history books. As the match completed, Rahane and his counterpart Shreyas shook hands, with the former admitting that his team's batting unit was pathetic on the day.
"Kya faltu batting kari humne (What a disastrous batting effort from us)," Rahane seemingly told Iyer as the two shook hands after the game.
Rahane's dismissal was labelled by many as the game-changing moment in the match. The KKR skipper was given LBW while trying to sweep Yuzvendra Chahal. Though the on-field umpire raised his finger as the ball hit Rahane's back leg, it was later found out that the impact was outside off. Hence, had Rahane reviwed the call, he would've been given not-out.
"As a batter, I thought that I could save the review for later. It shouldn't happen that I take a review and lose it, then we are only left with one review," Rahane said in the post-match press conference. "The communication between the two batsmen [him and Raghuvanshi] wasn't that clear. If someone clearly tells you that the impact can be out or it can miss, you take a review as a batter.
"But generally, the batsmen in front of you, you think about what they say. The communication wasn't that clear: 'Maybe it could be the umpire's call, maybe it could be hitting.' That's why I didn't take a review. But again, no complaints. Apart from that, we also were pretty bad as a batting unit. And that was the reason we lost today."