Former India batter Mohammad Kaif has suggested Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to start grooming Rinku Singh as the future captain of the team. He mentioned that this will be a smart-move.
In IPL 2026, KKR will be led by Ajinkya Rahane and all eyes will be on him as to how he will take his team forward after a bitter-sweet season last year. KKR has already been dealing with a lot of injury concerns and their pace department is massively affected by injury setbacks. Harshit Rana, Akash Deep and Matheesha Pathirana – the pace trio has been injured and Akash has already been ruled out and Saurabh Dubey has been announced as his replacement.
Kaif has seen Rinku Singh during his leadership stint with Uttar Pradesh in domestic cricket and he believes taking the captaincy responsibilities will also enhance his game.
“KKR should groom Rinku Singh as a future captain. Rinku Singh is an all-format player. Although he is not part of the Test team, he can bat well in all formats. I come from UP, and I know what he does for UP. A lot of batters score runs, but his runs come in winning cause. So, that guy is ready and captains UP,” Kaif said on his YouTube channel.
“He has the mental strength to handle captaincy and batting together. They have a ready guy. Now it remains to be seen if they give him the captaincy after Rahane, do it mid-season, or make him the vice-captain. Just get him in the mix, it will be a long-term investment for KKR,” he added.
“Even that call was taken very late. Rahane was picked towards the end of the auction, which means he was not in the plans for captaincy. It felt like they were looking for a future captain when they spent INR 23-24 crore for Venkatesh Iyer. But they later went with Rahane because of his captaincy experience,” said Kaif.
