Former South African captain Faf du Plessis reckons Kolkata Knight Riders’ bowling is going to be the team’s Achilles Heel in the upcoming IPL 2026. With Mustafizur Rahman out of the tournament, Harshit Rana has been ruled out of the majority of the season due to a knee injury.

Furthermore, Matheesha Pathirana is recovering from an injury. KKR recently named Zimbabwe’s lanky pacer Blessing Muzarabani as Mustafizur Rahman’s replacement.

Faf du Plessis said on ESPN Cricinfo, “Their bowling is a massive red flag. So if you can’t find an overseas bowler good enough to make their strongest 11, then you play both these openers at the top. They are X-factor players who will win you games if you back them. But you can’t just have batting resources and no bowling resources. Their team would be better balanced if only one of them play with Narine opening and Rahane and Raghuvanshi at 3 and 4.”

On the other hand, former Indian opener Abhinav Mukund said KKR have got a plethora of openers in the team and if Finn Allen and Tim Seifert open the innings, then Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi will bat out of position.

“This is where the biggest problem comes for KKR. With these two opening (Allen and Seifert) and Green at 3, you end up batting Ajinkya Rahane at 4 and Angkrish Raghuvanshi at 5. And they are all out of position. Rinku Singh comes in at 6, Ramandeep at 7, and then Sunil Narine. So you’ve got five openers potentially in that side if you bat Finn Allen and Tim Seifert at the top of the order,” said Mukund (via the aforementioned source).

Kolkata Knight Riders will begin their IPL 2026 campaign against the Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium on 29th March.