IPL 2025: KKR vs RCB, Match 1 – Eden Gardens Today’s weather forecast & pitch report

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are poised to play their first IPL 2025 match. This match will take place on March 22 at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens, hosted by the team captained by Ajinkya Rahane.

The defending champions, KKR, will have a new skipper in Ajinkya Rahane, but they still have the same core that helped them win the championship the previous year.

With just three losses from the previous season, the Knight Riders will be looking to begin their title defense in a big way.

Speaking of new leaders, the RCB team named Rajat Patidar as their new captain for the upcoming campaign, in an attempt to revive their trophy aspirations. Although they won six straight games to go to the playoffs last season, RCB’s hopes of capturing the championship were dashed in the elimination match against the Rajasthan Royals (RR).

Pitch Report 

The Eden Gardens might give some assistance to the bowlers with some extra bounce, but it has mostly been a batting-friendly wicket where most of the matches have been won by the team bowling first. The due factor does play a huge role in this venue where the bowlers have trouble gripping the ball and the surface does not really change much. 

Weather report

The weather report for Kolkata does not look promising. As per Saturday’s forecast, there are 75% chance of rain, which may spoil the mood of the fans. All would pray that the weather remains good, and the tournament could start without any hitch. Both the players and the fans would be keen that the game proceeds as scheduled, and not that the tournament starts with a cancelled game.

Squads 

KKR: Ajinkya Rahane (c), Venkatesh Iyer (vc), Moeen Ali, Vaibhav Arora, Quinton de Kock, Harshit Rana, Spencer Johnson, Mayank Markande, Sunil Narine, Anrich Nortje, Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Chetan Sakariya, Rinku Singh, Luvnith Sisodia, Varun Chakravarthy. 

RCB: Rajat Patidar (c), Abhinandan Singh, Jacob Bethell, Manoj Bhandage, Swastik Chikara, Tim David, Josh Hazlewood, Virat Kohli, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Liam Livingstone, Mohit Rathee, Lungi Ngidi, Devdutt Padikkal, Krunal Pandya, Rasikh Salam, Phil Salt, Jitesh Sharma, Romario Shepherd, Suyash Sharma, Swapnil Singh, Nuwan Thushara, Yash Dayal.