Kolkata, Mar 22: Rajat Patidar, the captain of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) has won the toss and elected to bowl first in the opening game of IPL 2025 against defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens on Saturday.

Before the toss happened, the IPL 2025 season had the official opening ceremony hosted by actor-producer Shah Rukh Khan, also KKR’s co-owner, along with performances by singer Shreya Ghoshal, actor Disha Patani and singer-rapper Karan Aulja.

After winning the toss, Patidar, captaining RCB for the first time in the IPL, said he is playing with three seamers and two spinners. Interestingly, RCB have not picked veteran India pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar for the tournament opener.

“The pitch looks hard. Amazing to lead RCB and great opportunity to learn from the great players. We have done proper preparations for the last 10-15 days. I am confused with this impact player rule,” he said.

KKR skipper Ajinkya Rahane also said he was looking to field first and that he’s also playing three fast bowlers and two spinners. “It's an honour to lead this team. Our preparation has been good, the core group has been the same. Looking forward to bat well first and defend later on. It is all about giving the players the freedom and allow them to play as a unit,” he said.

Playing XIs

Kolkata Knight Riders: Quinton de Kock (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane (c), Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Spencer Johnson, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy

Impact Substitutes: Anrich Nortje, Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora, Anukul Roy, Luvnith Sisodia

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Virat Kohli, Philip Salt (wk), Rajat Patidar (c), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma, Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Rasikh Dar Salam, Suyash Sharma, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal

Impact Substitutes: Devdutt Padikkal, Abhinandan Singh, Manoj Bhandage, Romario Shepherd, Swapnil Singh

--IANS

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