KOLKATA – The 2025 In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) bowls off with a block­buster clash as de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Kolkata Knight Rid­ers (KKR) take on Roy­al Chal­lengers Ben­galu­ru (RCB) at the icon­ic Eden Gar­dens in Kolkata, In­dia on Sat­ur­day start­ing at 11 am.

The spot­light will be on West In­di­an pow­er­hous­es Sunil Nar­ine, An­dre Rus­sell, Rov­man Pow­ell and Ro­mario Shep­herd, who are ex­pect­ed to duke it out for their re­spec­tive teams in the high-oc­tane en­counter.

KKR, fresh off their tri­umphant IPL 2024 cam­paign, have re­tained their core group of play­ers, in­clud­ing West In­di­an stal­warts Nar­ine, Rus­sell and Pow­ell.

Nar­ine, the MVP of the 2024 sea­son, is once again ex­pect­ed to show­case his all-around prowess with both bat and ball while Rus­sell, who had a rel­a­tive­ly qui­et sea­son with the bat in 2024, re­mains one of the most feared fin­ish­ers in T20 crick­et.

KKR al­so made strate­gic moves at the auc­tion, sign­ing Venkatesh Iy­er and bring­ing in Quin­ton de Kock as a re­place­ment for Phil Salt.

On the oth­er side, Roy­al Chal­lengers Ben­galu­ru have bol­stered their squad with the ac­qui­si­tion of West In­di­an all-rounder Ro­mario Shep­herd and Bar­ba­di­an-born Eng­lish play­er Jabob Bethell.

RCB’s bat­ting line­up looks for­mi­da­ble, with Vi­rat Kohli, fresh off a stel­lar Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy 2025 cam­paign, set to open along­side Phil Salt.

The mid­dle or­der, fea­tur­ing the likes of Liam Liv­ing­stone, Tim David, and Jitesh Shar­ma, is packed with fire­pow­er.

While KKR boasts a well-round­ed bowl­ing at­tack led by Nar­ine, Varun Chakar­avarthy, and An­rich Nort­je, RCB has opt­ed for ex­pe­ri­ence by sign­ing Bhu­vnesh­war Ku­mar and Josh Ha­zle­wood.

KKR will be led by the ex­pe­ri­enced Ajinkya Ra­hane, who takes over the reins from Shreyas Iy­er. RCB have en­trust­ed Ra­jat Pati­dar with the cap­tain­cy, mark­ing his first stint as an IPL skip­per.

CMC