Three-time IPL champion Kolkata Knight Riders is going through a phase of change. The team changed its captain before the IPL 2025 season, while the team changed its head coach before IPL 2026. Also, there was a big change in the squad in the last auction. But KKR would hardly have thought that it would suddenly have to change its captain in the very first match of the season. Kolkata Knight Riders had to face this situation in their first match of the IPL 2026 season against Mumbai Indians and in such a situation Rinku Singh took over the captaincy of the team.
Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders clashed on Sunday 29 March at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. In this match, Kolkata batted first and captain Ajinkya Rahane scored an explosive half-century. But after some time, when the team’s fielding started, he suddenly got injured. While fielding, Rahane suddenly suffered from cramps in his right hand, due to which it became difficult for him to continue playing further and he had to leave the field.
All this happened only after 4 overs were over and in such a situation the responsibility of Kolkata fell on the shoulders of its vice-captain i.e. Rinku Singh. Kolkata had appointed Rinku as its vice-captain just before the start of the season. This was the first time that he was made Vice-Captain. But Rinku and KKR might not have thought that they would have to take important decisions for the team on the field so soon. In this way, after the 5th over, Rinku took over the captaincy of KKR and became the captain of the team for the first time in this league. Before this, Rinku had definitely performed this duty in domestic cricket.
Talking about the match, Kolkata batted first and scored a big score of 220 runs. For Kolkata, captain Rahane played an inning of 67 runs in just 40 balls. Apart from him, young batsman Angkrish Raghuvanshi also scored 51 runs in 29 balls. Finn Allen, who was making his IPL debut, played an explosive inning of 37 runs in 17 balls, while Rinku Singh contributed 33 runs in 21 balls.