RCB vs KKR: IPL Season 18 Kickstarts Today, Fantasy Playing XI, Preview & Predictions

IPL 2025 Season 18 kickstarts today on 22nd March with defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders facing off against one of the favourites Royal Challengers Bengaluru at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Despite winning the title in the last season KKR will get in the field with a slight different changes, a big one Ajinkya Rahane as their new captain.

On the other hand, in their search of winning maiden IPL title Royal Challengers Bengaluru is also leaving behind their many key players like Faf Du Plessis, Maxwell & Mohammed Siraj and all set with their new brigade, Rajat Patidar as captain, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Salt, Tim David & Hazlewood to be one of the key players.

Earlier during mega auction Kolkata Knight Riders retained their loyal players Sunil Narine, Russell and Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana, and Ramandeep Singh. While RCB stick to believe in Virat Kohli along with Rajat Patidar & Yash Dayal. It came in shock when RCB released many potential players from previous years.

Moving on to the season opener, both the teams will look forward to win the first match. KKR look quite strong on paper team as De Kock, Rahane, Narine, Rinku Singh & Russell in the batting lineup. In the bowling lineup they have likes of Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Spencer Johnson & Anrich Nortje.

While RCB as well looks quite pumped up with the players like Krunal Pandya, Liam Livingstone, Lungi Ngidi & Devdutt Paddikal. Bowling department still looks naive, but it will be interesting to see how they cope up ahead in the tournament.

Squads: 

Kolkata Knight Riders Squad: Quinton de Kock (wk), Ajinkya Rahane (c), Sunil Narine, 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

Royal Challengers Bengaluru Squad: Rajat Patidar (c), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Virat Kohli, Philip Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, 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

Predicted Playing XI RCB: Virat Kohli, Philip Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar, Tim David, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Liam Livingstone, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal.

Predicted Playing XI KKR: Quinton de Kock (wk), Ajinkya Rahane (c), Sunil Narine, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Anrich Nortje, Anukul Roy

Fantasy Playing XI: Quinton de Kock (wk), Virat Kohli (C), Philip Salt, Rajat Patidar, Sunil Narine(VC), Andre Russell, Harshit Rana, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Varun Chakaravarthy