The 2025 season was the 18th season for the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket franchise Kolkata Knight Riders. They were one of the ten teams that competed in the 2025 IPL. They were the defending champions. Ahead of the season, Ajinkya Rahane was announced as the captain, replacing Shreyas Iyer. The team was coached by Chandrakant Pandit.
Kolkata Knight Riders were the fourth team to be eliminated from the 2025 IPL and finished the season in eighth place with five wins from 14 matches. Captain Rahane scored the most runs (390) while Varun Chakravarthy and Vaibhav Arora took the most wickets (17 each) for Kolkata in the 2025 season.
Pre-season
The 2025 Indian Premier League was the 18th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket league, organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Kolkata Knight Riders were the defending champions having won their third title in the previous season. The tournament featured ten teams competing in 74 matches from 22 March to 3 June 2025. Kolkata played all their home matches at Eden Gardens.
Player retention Franchises were allowed to retain a maximum of six players from their squad, including a maximum of five recent international players. Franchises were required to submit their retention lists before 31 October 2024. Kolkata retained six players, but did not retain their prior captain Shreyas Iyer.
+ Retained players No. Player Salary 1 Rinku Singh 2 Varun Chakravarthy 3 Sunil Narine 4 Andre Russell 5 Ramandeep Singh 6 Harshit Rana
+ Released players Batters Wicket-keepers All-rounders Fast bowlers Spin bowlers Angkrish Raghuvanshi Manish Pandey Nitish Rana Shreyas Iyer K. S. Bharat Phil Salt Rahmanullah Gurbaz Anukul Roy Sherfane Rutherford Venkatesh Iyer Chetan Sakariya Dushmantha Chameera Mitchell Starc Sakib Hussain Vaibhav Arora Allah Ghazanfar Suyash Sharma
Auction The season's auction took place on 24 and 25 November 2024 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The auction purse for each franchise was set at , with the franchises being deducted an amount from the purse for each retained player. Kolkata had a purse remaining of . Franchises that did not retain six players, were allowed Right-to-Match (RTM) cards at the auction for each player not retained. Kolkata had no cards left. Kolkata bought fifteen players in the auction, including ten capped players and five overseas players.
Squad Players with international caps as of start of 2025 IPL are listed in bold. Ages are as of . Withdrawn players are indicated by a dagger symbol () and placed at the bottom of the table.
+ Kolkata Knight Riders squad for the 2025 Indian Premier League S/N Name Nationality Birth date Batting style Bowling style Salary Notes 2 Anrich Nortje Right-handed Right-arm fast Overseas 3 Ajinkya Rahane Right-handed Right-arm medium Captain 9 Manish Pandey Right-handed Right-arm medium 10 Moeen Ali Left-handed Right-arm off break Overseas 11 Mayank Markande Right-handed Right-arm leg break 12 Andre Russell Right-handed Right-arm fast-medium Overseas 13 Quinton de Kock Left-handed Overseas 14 Vaibhav Arora Right-handed Right-arm fast medium 18 Angkrish Raghuvanshi Right-handed Right-arm off break 19 Ramandeep Singh Right-handed Right-arm medium 21 Rahmanullah Gurbaz Right-handed Right-arm medium fast Overseas 22 Harshit Rana Right-handed Right-arm fast medium 25 Venkatesh Iyer Left-handed Right-arm medium 29 Varun Chakravarthy Right-handed Right-arm leg break 35 Rinku Singh Left-handed Right-arm off break 45 Anukul Roy Left-handed Slow left-arm orthodox 47 Spencer Johnson Left-handed Left-arm fast Overseas 55 Chetan Sakariya Left-handed Left-arm medium fast Replacement 73 Luvnith Sisodia Left-handed 74 Sunil Narine Left-handed Right-arm off break Overseas Shivam Shukla Right-handed Right-arm leg break Temporary replacement 52 Rovman Powell Right-handed Right-arm medium Overseas; withdrawn Umran Malik Right-handed Right-arm fast Withdrawn
Support staff In September 2024, it was announced that Chennai Super Kings's bowling coach, Dwayne Bravo, would join Kolkata in a mentorship role replacing Gautam Gambhir. In March 2025, Ottis Gibson and Carl Crowe joined Kolkata in an assistant coach and bowling coach roles replacing Abhishek Nayar, Omkar Salvi and Ryan ten Doeschate.
Position Name Head coach Chandrakant Pandit Assistant coach Ottis Gibson Bowling coach Bharat ArunCarl Crowe Mentor Dwayne Bravo Source: Wisden
League stage Kolkata Knight Riders began their season with a loss against Royal Challengers Bengaluru; won against Rajasthan Royals, lost to Mumbai Indians, defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad, lost to Lucknow Super Giants, defeated Chennai, lost to Punjab Kings and Gujarat Titans. Their next match against Punjab was abandoned due to rain. Kolkata won the next two matches against Delhi Capitals and Rajasthan, but lost to Chennai. Following another abandoned match due to rain against Bengaluru; Kolkata were eliminated from the 2025 IPL. They lost their last match of the season to Hyderabad.
Points table
League progression
Fixtures
Statistics
+ Most runs Runs Player 390 Ajinkya Rahane 300 Angkrish Raghuvanshi 246Sunil Narine 206Rinku Singh 167 Andre Russell + Most wickets Wickets Player 17 Varun Chakravarthy 17 Vaibhav Arora 15 Harshit Rana 12 Sunil Narine 8 Andre Russell
References Original 2025 IPL Schedule vs Revised 2025 IPL Schedule
General references
External links
Kolkata Knight Riders at IPLT20.com