IPL 2025: The 18th season of the Indian Premium League is going to start from March 22. The first match of IPL 2025 will be played between defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore on Saturday at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. The discussion about the playing XI of both the teams has intensified after this match.

Fans are eager to know with which 11 players both the teams will enter their first match. So let's know what could be the playing XI of KKR and RCB in the first match…..

Both teams will play under the captaincy of Rahane, Rajat

Before the start of IPL 2025, KKR has appointed Ajinkya Rahane and RCB has appointed Rajat Patidar as their captain. Ajinkya Rahane has also served as captain in IPL before this. He has previously been the captain of Rajasthan Royals.

Talking about RCB captain Rajat Patidar, this is his first experience as captain in IPL. However, before this he has handled the responsibility of captaincy in domestic cricket.

Tough competition between the two teams

The first match of IPL 2025 is going to be very exciting. It is believed so because both the teams include more than one stalwart. Talking about Kolkata Knight Riders, star players like Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Rinku Singh, Varun Chakraborty and Quinton de Kock are included in their camp.

At the same time, RCB has experienced players like captain Rajat Patidar, Liam Livingstone, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood to support superstar Virat Kohli. Now it will be interesting to see who wins the first match.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Quinton de Kock (wicketkeeper), Sunil Narine, Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Spencer Johnson, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakraborty.

Impact Player: Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Lavnith Sisodia

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar, Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma, Tim David/Jacob Bethell, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal

Impact Player: Rasikh Dar/Suyash Sharma.