KKR vs RCB, IPL 2025 Highlights: RCB thrash KKR by seven wickets, off to flying start in the season

KKR vs RCB Live Score: Good news first - it is not raining! The not so good stuff, though, is that the forecast says it should start somewhere around now. And so there might be showers yet. In fact, there are more chances of rain appearing from now till the end of the day than at any point before .

KKR vs RCB Live Score,: RCB had to let go of Mohammed Siraj but then this season, they have two senior statesmen of modern day fast bowling leading their battery. Bhuvneshwar Kumar has always been a nightmare to score off and he has 71 wickets in the powerplay, the most by any bowler in this phase in the IPL. Josh Hazlewood, meanwhile, has been a nightmare to face in all phases whenever he has played in the IPL.

KKR vs RCB Live Score: Patidar's biggest strength is hitting spin out of the mark and this made him a lethal weapon last season for RCB in the middle overs. He smashed over 300 runs in this phase at a strike rate of 180.68. Against spin alone, Patidar maintained a strike rate of 197.24 throughout the season.

KKR vs RCB Live Score: Everyone knows what Sunil Narine brings to the table as a bowler but his party trick of hitting big sixes in a jiffy played a big role in KKR winning the title last season. In fact, he finished as KKR's top scorer last season, even scoring his first ever century in senior cricket. Since then, though, Narine has 9.05 as a batter across 20 innings with a highest score of 38. Will that prompt a change in the batting order?

KKR vs RCB Live Score: More of the same for now. Very heavy cloud cover but no rain. Let's hope that is how it stays, in which case the cool weather might make it actually quite pleasant for a day out at the Eden Gardens.

KKR vs RCB Live Score, IPL: This match will be Kohli's 400th T20 game. He is the third Indian to get to that mark after his side's current batting coach Dinesh Karthik, who played 412 games, and his India captain Rohit Sharma who has played 448.

KKR vs RCB Live Score: First of all, an hour of extra time is given for league matches. It means that the latest a five-overs-a-side match can finish is 12am. If that is not possible, then both sides will be awarded a point each. Toss is scheduled to take place at 7pm and the match itself is supposed to start at 7.30pm IST.

KKR vs RCB Live Score: Rain has already had a say on this match in a tiny way. Earlier in the week, a KKR intra-squad practice match was washed out after only one innings. Light rain had hit the city on Wednesday and Thursday too, although both teams completed their training sessions then.

KKR vs RCB Live Score: Rain has the potential to spoil a lot of things this evening. Word from the ground at the moment, though, is that there is no rain but it is cloudy nonetheless. But showers have been pelting down in the city intermittently over the past 48 hours or so. All things considered, it will be a bit of a surprise if rain has no say on today's proceedings.

KKR vs RCB Live Score: It will be interesting to see how Virat Kohli fares this season. There were all kinds of question marks on his credentials as a T20 player last season, with the tournament coming right before the 2024 T20 World Cup. He blew them out of the park by scoring over 700 runs with the kind of strike rate that he had scored at only once before in the IPL - that legendary 2016 season. He didn't have the greatest of tournaments in the T20 World Cup, technically speaking, but who in the world cares about that considering he played a match-winning knock in the final and won the trophy itself.

And then, he retired from T20Is. Which means this season, Kohli's only motivation to do well will be for RCB and RCB alone. In his long and prolific career, this might be the first time he has faced a situation like that.

KKR vs RCB Live Score: Players on the fringe of India selection have become IPL captains before but even by those standards, Patidar is an unusual candidate. RCB's head coach Andy Flower and director Mo Bobat closely observed Patidar during the 2024 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in which he led MP to the final as captain. According to ESPNCricinfo, they were impressed with Patidar's decision-making and leadership and flew to Ahmedabad to discuss his candidacy as RCB captain with Virat Kohli, who was at the time in the city preparing for the third ODI between India and England. Kohli gave full backing and Patidar was made captain last month.

IPL 2025, KKR vs RCB Live Score: RCB's new spinner Suyash Sharma could be sitting out of this fixture in which he would've faced the side he played for until last season. Suyash is only returning from a long rehab following a groin injury. Suyash played 11 games for KKR in 2023 and picked 10 wickets but could only play two last season before being ruled out.

IPL 2025, KKR vs RCB Live Score: This isn't the first time that Rahane is donning the KKR colours. He was with the side in the 2022 season of the IPL but it was a stint that did few favours to Rahane's credentials as a T20 player. Rahane managed just seven appearances that year and scored 133 runs at a paltry average-strike rate combo of 19.00 and 103.90.

IPL 2025, KKR vs RCB Live Score: Rahane was not at his best in the Ranji Trophy for Mumbai this past season but the opposite was the case in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, which is probably more relevant from the IPL's point of view. He scored 469 runs at a strike rate of 164.56 with five half-centuries, finishing the tournament as the highest scorer. He also won the player of the tournament award with Mumbai clinching the title.

IPL 2025, KKR vs RCB Live Score: Ajinkya Rahane is a senior statesman of Indian cricket, Rajat Patidar not quite. But Patidar does command respect due to his performances, which surely is the reason why he became captain of a side that has the likes of Virat Kohli and Josh Hazlewood among other international superstars.

IPL 2025, KKR vs RCB Live Score: The last time KKR and RCB opened an IPL season, scores like 250 were considered little less than fantasy. Last year, though, those scores ended up becoming par and, in some unbelievable cases, sub-par. The Eden Gardens was the best example of it. There have been 12 200+ totals at Eden in just the last two seasons, compared to only 10 such scores until 2022. So well, we could have a six-a-thon today.

IPL 2025, KKR vs RCB Live Score: Quinton de Kock(w), Sunil Narine, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Spencer Johnson, Vaibhav Arora, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Manish Pandey, Moeen Ali, Anrich Nortje, Rovman Powell, Anukul Roy, Mayank Markande, Chetan Sakariya, Luvnith Sisodia

IPL 2025, KKR vs RCB Live Score: Virat Kohli, Philip Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar(c), Jitesh Sharma(w), Liam Livingstone, Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal, Swapnil Singh, Lungi Ngidi, Romario Shepherd, Manoj Bhandage, Rasikh Dar Salam, Nuwan Thushara, Jacob Bethell, Suyash Sharma, Mohit Rathee, Swastik Chikara, Abhinandan Singh

IPL 2025, KKR vs RCB Live Score: A person is legally deemed an adult in this country, and most others around the world, when they turn 18. Well, the IPL turns 18 this year and quite fittingly, it is KKR and RCB who kick this season off, as they did in the inaugural season of the league in 2008. At the time, the host venue was Bengaluru, this year it is the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Stay tuned for more updates!