KKR's middle order for IPL 2026 seems slightly cold: Aakash Chopra

Former Indian cricketer and ex-Kolkata Knight Riders player Aakash Chopra highlighted a concern which KKR could face while picking their overseas players in the XI for IPL 2026. KKR finished eighth in IPL 2025 after emerging as the champions in the preceding season.

The renowned commentator shared how KKR have had a history of slotting in a wicketkeeper-batter as one of their opening batters. He also mentioned KKR's Kiwi duo of Tim Seifert and Finn Allen and felt one of the two will find their way up top.

"A topic of discussion would be which four overseas would play. Among the four overseas, if they make a keeper-batter open, who will bat in the lower order? That is a big question. They have generally had a keeper opener. They have taken Tim Seifert and Finn Allen this time," shared Chopra in a video on his YouTube channel. 

Although Chopra underscored that an all-Indian middle order might end up eventually working for KKR, he expressed concern regarding the effectiveness of having to play players who have not yet demonstrated their all in those slots as far as the previous seasons of the league are concerned.

"If you play either of them and open with Ajinkya Rahane alongside him, you will play Cameron Green at No. 3. The questions start coming after that. Angkrish Raghuvanshi at No. 4, Rinku Singh at No. 5, Ramandeep Singh at No. 6 and Tejasvi Singh at No. 7. It's not sounding that great to me. It might work out, but is it sounding good? Your middle order looks slightly cold," he added.

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Other than Allen, Seifert and Green, KKR also picked up Rachin Ravindra, Matheesha Pathirana and Mustafizur Rahman in the overseas players category while having already retained Rovman Powell and Sunil Narine in the squad ahead of the mini auction. They have a whole lot of players to choose from while picking their four overseas players to feature in the XI.

KKR squad for IPL 2026: Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Sunil Narine, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Umran Malik, Cameron Green, Finn Allen, Matheesha Pathirana, Tejasvi Singh, Kartik Tyagi, Prashant Solanki, Daksh Kamra, Sarthak Ranjan, Mustafizur Rahman, Rahul Tripathi, Tim Seifert, Akash Deep, Rachin Ravindra.