Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Ajinkya Rahane, captain of Kolkata Knight Riders, was on Wednesday fined Rs 12 lakh for maintaining a slow over-rate during their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 match against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Tuesday at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.As this was the team’s first offence of the season under Article 2.22 of the IPL’s Code of Conduct, which deals with minimum over-rate violations, Rahane was fined Rs 12 lakh.In the match, Noor Ahmad returned figures of 3/21 as Chennai Super Kings beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 32 runs to register their second win in a row.Chennai posted 192/5 after being asked to bat, with contributions from Sanju Samson (48) and Dewald Brevis (41).Noor then led the bowling effort with his left-arm wrist spin to restrict Kolkata to 160/7 in their chase, leaving them without a win after five matches.Kolkata are at the bottom of the points table with one point, which came from a washed-out match.Chennai, after starting the season with three losses, have now won two matches in a row and moved up to eighth place.The team is still waiting for the return of MS Dhoni, who is recovering from a calf injury and has not played yet this season.In the chase, Kolkata lost early wickets including Finn Allen (1) and Sunil Narine (24), but stayed in the contest for some time.Noor dismissed Rahane for 28 and Cameron Green for a golden duck on consecutive balls, but Rinku Singh avoided the hat-trick.Rovman Powell (31 not out) and Ramandeep Singh (35) tried to rebuild the innings, but the required run rate remained high.“We just have to keep that head up and just be positive and have that self-belief,” Rahane said.“I thought with the ball, we were treated really well. 190 on this wicket was really good, especially the power play, what they got, 70-odd runs. After that, pulling back to 190 was an amazing job from our bowling unit. I thought initially that with our batting, we just got 36 or 37 runs in the power play. I thought that was really important. In the middle phase, hitting spinners was slightly challenging, but apart from that, the wicket was really good. We needed one batter to bat until deep and then take it in the end,” Rahane added.
