Ajinkya Rahane has now become the batter with the most ducks as an opener in IPL history \u2014 a record that nobody wanted, arriving at the worst possible moment for a KKR captain already under enormous pressure in a season that has produced no wins and plenty of misery.<\/p>\n
Rahane\u2019s back-to-back golden ducks against Rajasthan Royals on Sunday at Eden Gardens pushed his tally to 12 ducks as an opener in the IPL \u2014 moving him clear of Parthiv Patel\u2019s 11, which had previously been the unwanted benchmark at the top of this particular list.<\/p>\n
Most ducks as an opener in IPL history:<\/p>\n
12 \u2014 Ajinkya Rahane* 11 \u2014 Parthiv Patel 10 \u2014 Shikhar Dhawan 10 \u2014 Gautam Gambhir 9 \u2014 David Warner<\/p>\n
The list reads like a who\u2019s who of India\u2019s most experienced and decorated IPL openers \u2014 which makes Rahane\u2019s position at the top of it all the more striking. Dhawan, Gambhir and Warner are among the most prolific run-scorers the tournament has ever seen. Parthiv was a reliable top-order presence for multiple franchises over a long career. Rahane has now surpassed all of them on a list none of them would have wanted to lead.<\/p>\n
Back-to-back ducks from the captain in a must-win match \u2014 KKR were still searching for their first win of IPL 2026 going into this game, sitting at the bottom of the table with one point from seven games \u2014 is precisely the kind of moment that accelerates conversations about captaincy and team selection that were already well underway.<\/p>\n
Rahane has been one of the most discussed figures of IPL 2026 for all the wrong reasons. His batting position, his captaincy decisions, and now his personal form at the top of the order have all been under scrutiny from analysts including Aaron Finch and Kevin Pietersen who have questioned whether the current KKR setup is getting the best out of its extraordinary collection of talent.<\/p>\n
A duck in isolation is a bad day. Back-to-back ducks from the captain, resulting in the outright record for most ducks as an opener in IPL history, is the kind of statistical moment that tends to force a conversation that can no longer be deferred.<\/p>\n
KKR\u2019s management will have that conversation. The record, for now, belongs to Rahane alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ajinkya Rahane has now become the batter with the most ducks as an opener in IPL history \u2014 a record\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":49374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ipl"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49375,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49369\/revisions\/49375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}