KOLKATA: Royal Challengers Bengaluru skipper Rajat Patidar won the toss and elected to bowl against defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders in the opening game of the IPL 2025 here on Saturday.

This is for the first time KKR is facing RCB in the opening match of an IPL season since 2008.

Patidar has replaced Faf du Plessis as RCB skipper, while Ajinkya Rahane took over from Shreyas Iyer, who led KKR to their third IPL title last year.

Teams:

RCB: Virat Kohli, Phil Salt (wk), Rajat Patidar (C), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma, Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Rasikh Dar, Suyansh Sharma, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal.

KKR: Quinton de Kock(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Spencer Johnson, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy.