The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 is all set to kick off tonight (Obviously India Time). It can't be more thunderous than to host the kick off game in the loudest city Kolkata.
Quite literally too. There's an Orange Alert in place for the match-day in Kolkata, which could mean more rain than there's been in the lead-up, stronger winds, and even a thunderstorm. But if there's one thing the city knows how to do, it's turning chaos into celebration.
Fingers crossed, we get some game to witness and it's the IPL opening ceremony that can be ruined which I always liked. I'm sitting 1000 miles away from Kolkata and it's thunderous here as well, raining since morning.
We can't do anything about it, except say -"Rain rain go away, come again another day, lovely Kohli wants to play"
Annnnyways, that's the way IPL opening ceremonies ever been - unscripted. Let's come down to business.
Preview Game No. 1 (IPL 2025)
Teams
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Kolkata Knight Riders Probable XII: Sunil Narine, Quinton de Kock (wk), Ajinkya Rahane (c), Venkatesh Iyer, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Spencer Johnson, Vaibhav Arora, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy
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Royal Challengers Bengaluru Probable XII: Phil Salt, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (c), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal, Suyash Sharma/Rasikh Dar Salam
(To choose the player for various roles, for IPL T20 Mania 2025, you can select players from the following link.)
Squads
Pitch and Conditions
A wet ball, which could be one of the central characters of the night, be it from the dew, the forecasted rain or a bit of saliva slipping its way back into cricket.
The night temperature is predicted to dip by 4-5 degrees, which could mean heavier dew and this favours hugely the chasing team.
As for pitch, it will be flat fast and full of runs.
KKR vs RCB Historical Overview in IPL
The rivalry between KKR and RCB has always delivered thrilling contests. The two teams have faced off 34 times in IPL history with KKR having the upper hand with 20 wins to RCB’s 14. At Eden Gardens, the home side has dominated, winning 8 of the 12 matches played there against RCB.
Know Everything about this game here...
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/ipl-2025-1449924/kolkata-knight-riders-vs-royal-challengers-bengaluru-1st-match-1473438/match-preview