Manish Pandey created history and joined Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to become only the third player from around the world to achieve a rare feat after he was named in the Kolkata Knight Riders' (KKR) playing XI for their 2026 Indian Premier League (IPL) clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), which is taking place on Sunday (May 3) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad.
Skipper Ajinkya Rahane revealed that KKR have made two changes to their line-up as they aim to win a third game in a row. Finn Allen returned to the line-up in place of Tim Seifert while Pandey replaced Ramandeep Singh.
This marks Pandey's first appearance of the season and means that he has played at least one match in all 19 seasons of the league so far. The star batter started his IPL career in the 2008 season with Mumbai Indians (MI) before joining Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in 2009. After two seasons at the Bengaluru-based franchise, he was signed by Pune Warriors India (PWI) in 2011 and spent three seasons with the franchise. In 2014, he joined KKR and stayed with them till 2017. That stint included a match-winning display in the final of the 2014 edition.
. Later, he joined Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in 2018 and stayed with them till 2021. He spent the 2022 season at Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and later joined Delhi Capitals (DC) in 2023. He returned to KKR in 2024 and was re-signed by them in the 2025 mega-auction and was retained by them ahead of this season. Although he played just one game in the 2024 campaign and featured thrice in 2025.
Pandey is only the third player to play all 19 seasons of the league, with Virat and Rohit being the only other players to achieve the feat.
Players To Play In Most IPL Seasons
Despite playing a match in all 19 seasons, Pandey is 20th in the list of players to make most appearances in the league. He is playing his 175th match in the league and has made 3942 runs at an average of 29.41.
On the other hand, Dhoni (278) is the league's most capped player with Rohit and Virat joint-second (276).
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Aayush Kataria is a Senior Copy Editor at Times Network with four years of experience, having started his career in the organisation. He is a key memb...View More
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