Kolkata: Cameron Green’s highest score in IPL 2026 is 79, against Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad last month. What stood out in that knock was Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) being unable to give him the strike when the innings needed to change gears. Between 14.4 and the end of the 18th over, Green faced one ball off the 19 bowled.
With no one in the middle-order able to play second fiddle to Green, KKR were 180 all out and lost by five wickets. Which makes Angkrish Raghuvanshi’s personal best IPL innings of 82 not out (44 balls) so important in the reverse fixture on Sunday which KKR won by 29 runs.
Raghuvanshi, 21, initially let Fin Allen do the heavy lifting. “It got so easy (at the start),” he told the official broadcaster at the innings break. “I just had to give him the strike and watch from the other end.”
Well, not quite. Three balls after an umpire’s call verdict saved him against Kagiso Rabada, Raghuvanshi scooped the South Africa fast bowler for six, a shot so audacious it had Titans captain Shubman Gill applauding.
Gill dropping to long-off in the Powerplay had forced Allen to try that shot off Mohammed Siraj earlier but he had failed to make contact. “(It) was not a ball you generally play a lap shot to,” Sanjay Bangar said on Cricinfo. Such a shot is attempted when the ball is on the stumps or full, said the former India allrounder and batting coach. “But he (Raghuvanshi) picked up the ball on the off-stump line which was also not that short.”
That there are no deliveries to waste adds to the difficulty quotient of being the junior partner in T20. Coming in at 4.4 overs and till Allen departed on 11.2 (for a 35-ball 93), Raghuvanshi played five dot balls. And ran eight singles and a two.
He also played some big shots. After Siraj dropped Allen on 33, KKR hit 6,6,6,4 off the next four balls. Three were by Allen but the sequence was started with a flick by Raghuvanshi off Jason Holder. When Sai Kishore tossed it up, he strode down the pitch and slammed a six.
After Allen fell, Raghuvanshi did what KKR could not with Green in Ahmedabad. Sai Kishore bowled a tight 12th over but Raghuvanshi hit a six and a four off Rashid Khan in the next. By then, Green had faced four deliveries. On his sixth, Green smoked Sai Kishore for six over long-on. He followed that with a four and a six on the leg-side, taking 17 from the over.
With Green motoring along, Raghuvanshi got to his fifth 50 of the season off 33 balls. Only Rishabh Pant, Devdutt Padikkal and Yashasvi Jaiswal have got as many or more in a season before turning 22. Like they did to Allen and Green, Titans gave Raghuvanshi a reprieve and he made the most of it against Siraj in the 19th over.
Of the three sixes in that over, one was scooped, one was over extra-cover and a third went to square-leg after Raghuvanshi picked a slower delivery. The only boundary was a reverse scoop. By the end of the innings, Raghuvanshi had hit Siraj, Rabada and Rashid for two sixes and a four behind the wicket.
“Star boy,” said Allen with a smile when asked about Raghuvanshi. “He’s just expanding his game. He’s got a great base and can play some incredible shots. For such a young fellow to be heavily relied on by the team just shows how good he is.”
Speaking before Allen, Titans batting coach Parthiv Patel said: “We had felt the pitch was not easy. Given the quality of our pace attack with established bowlers like Siraj and Rabada, he (Raghuvanshi) played an excellent innings.”
Across sport, the transition from youth to senior is difficult. Of all the top scorers in the men’s under-17 football World Cup, only Cesc Fabregas, Carlos Vela and Victor Osimhen have had long careers. Only four—Stefan Edberg, Lindsay Davenport, Andy Murray and Andy Roddick—have won the US Open senior and junior titles. Barring Edberg, Roger Federer, Bjorn Borg, Pat Cash, Amelie Mauresmo and Martina Hingis no one has won the junior and senior Wimbledon titles. Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja are the only players from the 2008 under-19 World Cup-winning squad to have had long international careers.
Raghuvanshi has a long way to go but the top-scorer for India in the 2022 under-19 World Cup (278 runs) is the highest run-getter for KKR (422) in 2026. His career strike rate is 136. This term, four 50s have come at over 150, three of them have been over 175 and Sunday’s knock had a strike rate of 186.36.
