'Someone's not going to work doubly harder if he's getting Rs 20 plus crore or someone's not going to work less harder when he's getting one, two, three crore...'
Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders' finished their season with a massive 110-run defeat to Sunrisers Hyderabad in New Delhi on Monday. Their season was derailed by a string of poor performances from the batters, with Venkatesh Iyer the most disappointing among the lot.
KKR's decision to re-sign Venkatesh Iyer using the Right To Match card after releasing him, at a hefty price of Rs 23.75 crore (KKR's third-most expensive player), backfired massively.
Iyer, the team vice-captain, averaged 20.28 as he failed to find his rhythm with the bat, scoring just 142 runs in 11 matches and a strike rate of 139.22.
He also missed a few games towards the end of the IPL 2025 season due to an injury.
But captain Ajinkya Rahane dismissed any suggestions that the price tag may have impacted the player's performance.
"Someone's not going to work doubly harder if he's getting Rs 20 plus crore or someone's not going to work less harder when he's getting one, two, three crore, whatever it is.
"...your attitude doesn't change on the field. You know, that's what matters. As a player, you only focus on the controllable things. And I felt Venkatesh Iyer was actually focusing on the controllable things," KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane said at the post-match press conference on Sunday.
"I thought his attitude was fantastic. One off season, that can happen to any player. So it's not about the price tag. I don't think he was thinking about his price tag at all. But just one of those seasons that we had to go through."
Rahane praised the bowling unit for its consistency across the season, highlighting the performances of Harshit Rana, Chakravarthy, Vaibhav Arora, and veteran Sunil Narine.
"The wickets were really good for the batters. But I thought, bowling throughout the season, as a bowling unit, we did really well...all the bowlers who have played, their thinking was really clear," he said.