IPL 2025 will begin with the match between defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Both the teams will play under the leadership of the new captain this time. Kolkata will enter the field this time to defend its title, while RCB will be eyeing its first title.

Both Kolkata and RCB are set to start with a win. In this match, all eyes will be on spinner Varun Chakraborty in which he will face RCB star batsman Virat Kohli and great batsmen like Phil Salt. Chakraborty played an important role in India's victory in the recent Champions Trophy. Salt was a part of KKR till last season, but this time he will play for the Bangalore franchise.

Will Narine-De Kock open?

Last season, Sunil Narine used to open the innings with Salt for KKR, but now KKR has Quinton de Kock available who can come to open with Narine. The decision to field Narine as an opener was taken by former mentor Gautam Gambhir, who is no longer with the team as he has become the head coach of the Indian team. In such a situation, it will be interesting to see whether Narine will come to open or a new mentor Dwayne Bravo will make a new strategy. Narine has been successful as an opener, so it is less likely that he will be sent to the lower or middle order.

Rahane-Patidar will face each other.

Kolkata's team will play under the captaincy of Ajinkya Rahane because Shreyas Iyer, who led the team to the title under his captaincy, will now represent the Punjab Kings. At the same time, RCB will be led by Rajat Patidar. Rahane will be seen captaining a team in the IPL after six years and he will have a tough challenge to defend the title. As always, RCB is full of star players this time too, but it will be interesting to see how the team's attitude is.

The combination will also be different with the new team.
RCB and KKR have many new players this time, due to which the combination will also be different compared to last time. The opening pair of both teams will be new. Salt can come with Kohli to start the innings in RCB, who can give a fast start to the team. At the same time, RCB has players like Devdutt Padikkal, Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma, Tim David, and Krunal Pandya in the middle order. At the same time, Rahane, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, and Andre Russell are in the middle order for KKR.

The probable playing 11 of RCB and KKR is as follows...
RCB: Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (captain), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma, Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal.

KKR: Quinton de Kock, Sunil Narine, Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Spencer Johnson, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakraborty.

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