The IPL 2025 is here and we are set to witness India’s biggest cricketing festival from March 22 at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) will lock horns against each other in a season’s opener at 7:30 PM IST. There are a lot of changes in all the teams’ squads after the IPL 2025 auction and it will be interesting to see how the teams manage to decided their playing XI. Today, we will be doing the KKR vs RCB Preview in the IPL 2025 Match 1. We will see the strengths and weaknesses of both the teams, expected playing XI, players to watch out for, pitch and weather report, head-to-head, key battles, and more. So let’s begin.

IPL 2025 Match 1: KKR vs RCB Preview

We are about to see the IPL 2025 season opener in KKR vs RCB on March 22 in Kolkata. The defending champions KKR will be playing in their home ground and will look to make the most of it in the first game. On the other hand, RCB will look to make the early inroads in the season to get the early momentum. Let us first see the KKR vs RCB Head-to-Head in the IPL history.

KKR vs RCB: Head-to-Head

RCB’s Strength: Batting Line-up

RCB’s strength lies in their batting line-up. They have some explosive overseas batters in Liam Livingstone, Jacob Bethell, Tim David, and Phil Salt. The franchise also have an experienced Indian batters in Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, and Krunal Pandya along with youngsters like Jitesh Sharma, and Swastik Chikara.

RCB’s Weaknesses/Concerns: Experienced Pacers Coming in from Injuries

RCB’s weaknesses or you can say a concern are their bowling line-up. They do have an experienced Josh Hazelwood, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Lungi Ngidi, but all three are coming from their respective injuries. Lungi and Josh were not playing in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 and Bhuvi is also not a regular feature in professional cricket nowadays. Bhuvi is also an injury prone in the last few years.

Also, RCB do not have a reputed wicket-taking spinner in the team. They have brought in some youngsters like Swapnil Singh, Mohit Rathee, and Suyesh Sharma, but no one is experienced at the IPL level.

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KKR’s Strengths: Explosive Batting Line-up

KKR’s batting line-up is looking even more dangerous than RCB. They have an explosive overseas batters in the team like Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Quinton de Kock, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Moeen Ali, and Rovman Powell. Not just the overseas ones, they have firepower Indian batters with Ramandeep Singh, Rinku Singh, and Venkatesh Iyer in the team.

In between, they have their experienced captain Ajinkya Rahane to hold this batting line-up. It’s a problem of plenty for KKR to decide whom to play and whom to leave from the playing XI.

Spin to win for KKR

KKR has two mystery spinners in Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine. Both the spinners can control the game in the middle overs, something the teams do nowadays in white-ball cricket. They also have Mayank Markande in the squad.

KKR’s Weakness/Concerns: Injuries to the Fast-Bowlers in the First Few Games

Same as the RCB, their two out-n-out pacers: Umran Malik, and Anrich Nortje is coming from an injury. They might take some time to get back to their best. Spencer Johnson is not an experienced at the highest level. KKR has to rely on their Indian youngsters like Vaibhav Arora and Harshit Rana in the bowling front.

Pitch and Weather Report

The pitch at the Eden Gardens is generally good for batting. As the game progresses, it might help the spinners to some extent, but all-n-all it’s a good batting wicket with the ball flying and outfield is very fast.

As far as weather, it might play a spoilsport in the KKR vs RCB game. According to AccuWeather, there are high chances of rain on the match day.

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Players to Watch Out For in KKR vs RCB Match One

Venkatesh Iyer

Venkatesh Iyer has been given a heafty amount during the auction, after his outstanding performances for KKR over the years. All the eyes will be on him as he will also be a part of the leadership group.

Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli is a consistent performer in the IPL over the years. He holds the key in the RCB’s batting line-up. If he does well at the top, he will set the platform for Livingstone and Co. in the death overs.

Rajat Patidar

Rajat Patidar is now a captain of the RCB. He will look to lead from the front and wants to start well. The right-handed batter can play the spinners well in the middle overs.

Varun Chakravarthy

Varun Chakravarthy is going through the best phase of his life. He is difficult to get away, his mystery is still unknown to many batters, and he can choke the RCB’s batting line-up during the middle phase.

Expected Playing XI:

RCB- Phil Salt, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar (c), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Swapnil Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazelwood, Yash Dayal.

Impact Player: Suyesh Sharma (if an extra bowler is needed), or Devdutt Padikkal (if an extra batter is needed).

KKR- Quinton de Kock (wk), Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane (c), Manish Pandey, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Anrich Nortje, Varun Chakravarthy.

Impact Player: Mayank Markande (if an extra bowler is needed) and Ramandeep Singh (if an extra batter is needed).

KKR vs RCB: Key Battles

Rajat Patidar vs Varun Chakravarthy

Rajat Patidar is one of the best batters against the spinners in the IPL 2024. Varun will look to counter him in the middle overs and try to take the RCB’s run-rate down.

Sunil Narine vs Josh Hazelwood

Narine is likely to open the inning for KKR. Josh Hazelwood, with the new ball, will look to bounced out Narine as we have seen in the past that the bowers tries to keep things short and in the body to Narine.

So this is the KKR vs RCB Preview for the IPL 2025 Match 1. What do you think? Who will start the campaign with a win? Comment your prediction below. Thank you for reading. Keep following us for the latest updates.