Rajat Patidar’s Royal Challengers Bengaluru kick-started their IPL 2025 campaign with an emphatic win by beating defending champions KKR in Eden Garden.

Ajinkya Rahane-led Kolkata Knight Riders is set to face Rajat Patidar-led Royal Challengers Bengaluru to play the first match of IPL 2025 on March 22 in Eden Gardens, Kolkata.

This is the second instance of KKR playing RCB in an IPL season opener after having done so in the inaugural edition in 2008.

Both teams will play their first match of IPL 2025 under new captains. RCB named Rajat Patidar as their new skipper for IPL 2025 while KKR named Ajinkya Rahane as their new captain.

Notably, RCB had lost all four games against KKR across the last two editions, six out of seven since the IPL 2021 second leg.

Speaking of the match Royal Challengers Bengaluru have won the toss and opted to bowl first. Quinton de Kock and Sunil Narine opened the innings for KKR while Josh Hazlewood opened the bowling attack for RCB.

de Kock made an aggressive start by hitting the boundary of the second ball but in the very next ball de Kock got a life as Suyash Sharma dropped a dolly.

But in the fifth delivery of the same over, Hazlewood dismissed de Kock as Jitesh Sharma took an excellent catch behind the stumps.

Following an early dismissal, Ajinkya Rahane and Sunil Narine made a terrific stand and started to smash RCB bowlers all around the Eden Garden. During the process, Ajinkya Rahane registers his maiden fifty as KKR captain.

While the due was seen as dangerous, Rasikh Salam broke the 103 runs stand by dismissing Narine for 44 runs in the final delivery of the 10th over.

At the end of the 10th over, KKR scored 107 runs for two wickets. Krunal Pandya in the very next over dismissed well-settled batter Rahane for 56 runs and added pressure over the KKR batting lineup.

Following the skipper’s dismissal, Angkrish Raghuvanshi and Venkatesh Iyer showed some confidence by scoring 14 runs in the 12th over from Suyash Sharma. But Krunal Pandya in the first legal delivery of the 13th over dismissed Venkatesh Iyer for six runs which made KKR to score 131 runs for four-wicket loss at the end of 13 overs.

KKR’s aggressive batters Rinku Singh and Andre Russell fall cheaply while the remaining lower-order batters too walk off without making much contribution.

At the end of 20 overs, KKR scored 174 runs for eight wickets loss with Ajinkya Rahane’s 56 remaining the KKR’s highest individual score.

While chasing, RCB made an impressive start by scoring 80 runs in the first powerplay. Virat Kohli and Philip Salt opened the inning for RCB and scattered KKR’s bowling attack all around the Eden Garden.

While the duo was seen as dangerous, Varun Chakaravarthy in the third delivery of the 9th over dismissed Salt and broke the 95-run partnership. Though RCB lost Devdutt Padikkal for 10 runs, Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar continued to dominate the KKR bowlers and pushed the team towards a safer position.

In the third delivery of the 16th over, Vaibhav Arora dismissed RCB captain Rajat Patidar for 34 runs which cost nothing for the visitors. Liam Livingstone with a back-to-back six and four in the first two balls of the 17th over clinched the maiden victory for RCB in IPL 2025.