Five losses. One washout. A captain with two consecutive ducks and the worst opener duck count in IPL history. That was KKR’s IPL 2026 before their first win finally came Saturday evening at Eden Gardens.
Then Rinku Singh walked in at 85 for 6.
The Collapse That Should Have Buried Them
Jofra Archer bowled Tim Seifert with the first ball of the innings — his third consecutive match doing exactly that. Ajinkya Rahane followed for a two-ball duck. KKR were 5 for 2 inside two overs, chasing just 156.
By the 13th over, five more wickets had fallen. The defending champions were staring at six straight defeats — a hole no title holder had ever dug in IPL history.
But the scoreboard only tells you what happened before Rinku. Not what happened after.
One Dropped Catch, 76 Runs
Nandre Burger dropped Rinku on 8. That single fumble rewrote the match. Rinku and Anukul Roy — 29 not out off 16 balls — stitched together 76 runs off 37 deliveries. Nine needed off the last over. Rinku hit consecutive fours, then a six off the penultimate ball. KKR won by four wickets with two balls to spare, continuing the season’s pattern where chasing teams were dominating IPL 2026. Final: 161/6 in 19.4 overs.
The innings that made it possible: 53 not out off 34 balls from a man whose own teammates had been publicly accused of undermining his confidence by shuffling the batting order.
The Platform Behind KKR’s First Win
Rinku got the headlines. The spin twins built the foundation. Varun Chakravarthy took 3/14 — his best figures this season — and crossed 200 T20 wickets in the process. Sunil Narine added 2/26. Together they strangled Rajasthan from 81/0 to 155/9 after 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (46 off 28) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (39) had threatened a total well north of 180. Kartik Tyagi sealed it with three wickets in the penultimate over.
KKR sit 9th with three points and a net run rate of -0.879. Seven league games remain. One win doesn’t fix a depleted pace attack, a captain averaging single digits, or the deepest deficit any defending champion has faced.
But before Saturday, KKR didn’t have proof they could finish a chase under pressure. Now they do — and the man who delivered KKR’s first win of IPL 2026 was the one everyone had written off.