Iyer 'burdened by price tag' theory addressed by Rahane: 'Someone is not going to work harder if he's getting 20 crore'
Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders' (KKR) campaign in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season ended on the worst possible note as the Ajinkya Rahane-led side faced a 110-run shellacking at the hands of Pat Cummins-led SunRisers Hyderabad on Sunday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi. The loss resulted in KKR eventually finishing at the eighth spot in the points table.
KKR were seen as one of the contenders to win the trophy this season. However, the franchise was bogged down by the poor form of Venkatesh Iyer, Ramandeep Singh, Quinton de Kock, Ramanullah Gurbaz, Harshit Rana and more. The biggest setback was Venkatesh Iyer who failed to set the IPL stage on fire after being picked by the franchise for INR 23.75 crore in the mega auction.
The KKR vice-captain struggled to get going with the bat, scoring just 142 runs in 11 matches at an average of 20.29 and a strike rate of 139.22. It remains to be seen whether he will be retained ahead of next year's IPL. Iyer also missed a few games towards the end of the IPL 2025 season due to an injury.
The left-hander received the backing of skipper Ajinkya Rahane, who dismissed the theory of the Madhya Pradesh batter being bogged down by the price tag pressure.
'What I can say is, you know, if a player gets 20 plus crore or if a player gets 1 or 2 crore or 3 or 4 crore, your attitude doesn't change on the field. That's what matters. As a player, you only focus on the controllable things. And I felt Venkatesh Iyer was actually focusing on the controllable things,' Rahane told reporters after the match against SunRisers Hyderabad.
'He was practising hard, doing, trying his best, even during the games, whichever matches he played before getting injured. I thought he did really well. It's just that for us as a team, 3-4 guys were out of form. That was the only reason I thought we struggled this year. But your attitude doesn't change,' he added.
Rahane also said that no player will start working harder after receiving more than INR 20 crore in the mega auction, and similarly, no player will take it easy if he gets less than INR 5 crore.
'Someone's not going to work doubly harder if he's getting 20 plus crore or someone's not going to work less harder when he's getting 1, 2, 3 crore, whatever it is,' said Rahane.
'For us cricketers, it's always about following what are the things which we have in our hands and the attitude. I thought his attitude was fantastic. He was always looking to contribute to the team on and off the field,' he added.
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