Kolkata Knight Riders retained six players for IPL 2025, but that hasn’t transformed into results in the ongoing season, with the defending champions losing two matches. Their only win came against Rajasthan Royals in the 18th edition. The big names haven’t clicked, with the likes of Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Venkatesh Iyer, and Harshit Rana failing to deliver against the rivals.
The situation was so bad in the latest game against Mumbai Indians that the team management had to send Manish Pandey as an impact sub after a batting collapse at the Wankhede Stadium. Even he couldn’t do much, and the team was dismissed for 116 runs in 16.2 overs. He scored 19 runs off 14 balls, laced with 2 fours and 1 six before Ashwani Kumar dismissed him.
Harbhajan Singh, who played with Manish for the Indian team, lauded the cricketer for his fitness and even compared him with Virat Kohli.
“Manish Pandey was the only cricketer who could match Virat Kohli’s fitness. He is still fit. We were together during a couple of tours, including one in Zimbabwe. Now, people will say that I have started talking about Virat, but what could I do if Virat is the fittest cricketer around? We have to bring his name when we talk about fitness,” Bhajji said while taking a dig at the critics, who accused him of praising Kohli unnecessarily.
Aakash reminded everyone that Manish has been playing the IPL since 2008. “Manish Pandey is the only fourth cricketer to be a part of all the IPL editions so far. Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma are the other three,” he said.