Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) defeated Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by seven wickets in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 opener at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Sunday. Virat Kohli scored 59* off 36 deliveries to guide his side to a comfortable triumph in his 400th T20 match.Put in to bat first, KKR got off to a cracking start courtesy of a 56-run knock off 31 deliveries by skipper Ajinkya Rahane.
Sunil Narine contributed with 44 from 26 balls, but RCB struck back through Krunal Pandya, who capped off an effective spell of 4-0-29-3. Angkrish Raghuvanshi played a decent hand with his 30-run knock, but the KKR innings never gathered momentum amid a flurry of wickets falling in the middle overs.
Also Read: SRH vs RR, IPL 2025 Preview: Predicted XI, Key Players, Head-to-Head, Pitch and Weather Report, Where to WatchYash Dayal, Rasikh Salam, and Suyash Sharma picked a scalp each, highlighting the prowess of the away team’s domestic bowling contingent.RCB breezed through the chase with absolute ease, majorly due to the inputs by their opening batters Kohli and Phil Salt. Salt donned the role of the aggressor, hammering nine fours and two sixes en route 56 runs off 31 deliveries.The duo particularly took on Varun Chakravarthy, who headed into the tournament high on confidence following his exploits in the Champions Trophy for India. The spinner ended up leaking 43 runs off his four overs and bagged a solitary wicket.Vaibhav Arora had a disappointing day with the ball too. The pacer was key with the new ball for the side in the last season, but the RCB batters took him for 42 runs in three overs. Sunil Narine was fairly economical, giving 27 runs in four overs in return of Devdutt Padikkal’s wicket. That was also partly because the opposition did not take risks against him, instead taking calculated risks against other bowlers, rounding off the chase in merely 16.2 overs.First Published: Mar 22, 2025 10:55 PM IST
