Match#1: KKR vs RCB
After the dust was settled of the grand opening ceremony of IPL 2025, it was time for cricket to take over the proceedings. The opening game at the IPL 2025 was kicked off between the defending champions KKR and RCB.
RCB won the toss and put KKR into bat. There were no surprises in the playing 12 of both teams, it was exactly same as predicted in the IPL 2025 Team Predictions. The only change was Bhuvneshwar Kumar. He missed out due to a minor injury.
Josh Hazelwood started brightly from RCB getting appreciable seam movement and bounce which proved too good for Quinton de Kock. He perished in the first over itself after being dropped earlier in the same over. Ajinkya Rahane walked in at 3, under some pressure due to some uncertainty in his position in the side despite being the captain. However he didn’t show any sign of that and played with utmost freedom. He was easily the best batsman on display from KKR. They were flying at the half way stage with 107-1 and were looking all set to go well past 200. However some good bowling in the middle overs by RCB, led by Krunal Pandya, put brakes on the charge from KKR.
Krunal removed Rahane and Venkatesh Iyer in quick succession before accounting for Rinku Singh on his last ball of his match winning spell of 4-0-29-3.
KKR lost all the momentum gained in the first half of their inning and finished at 174-8.
RCB begin their innings briskly with Phil Salt taking charge of the proceedings. Having kept the wickets for KKR in the last season, he was well prepared for all the tricks that KKR bowlers had up their sleeves. He took full toll of that and dispatched the KKR bowlers to all parts of the ground. He reached his 50 in just 25 balls and put RCB in a commanding position before getting out at 56 off 31 balls.
Virat Kohli, who didn’t have much of strike initially, carried his form from ICC Champions trophy and played a typical Virat Kohli knock in a chase and remained unbeaten to see RCB home. Rajat Patidar and Lyam Livingstone played their role in ensuring that they win the game in the 17th over.
It was a comprehensive win by RCB giving them a good head start in terms of the net run rate.
Match#2: SRH vs RR
SRH, bolstered by the inclusion of Ishan Kishan and Nitish Reddy to an already power packed batting line-up, delivered a breathtaking display of power hitting to set the IPL 2025 alight. They amassed 286-6 falling short by 1 run of their own record of highest score in IPL history. SRH have thrown the gauntlet for the other teams in IPL with this brutal batting display.
Travishek started in typical fashion taking full toll of the power play scoring 94 runs. But the run fest didn’t stop at the power play and carried on till the end. Ishan Kishan, with a point on two to prove to Mumbai Indians who let him go and to the Indian selectors who kept him out of selection for missing out on domestic matches, joined Travis Head after Abhishek got out in 4th over and remained unbeaten to score a scintillating 106 off 47 balls. His celebration upon reaching his 100 showed that this inning meant so much to him.
All the top 5 batters from SRH batted at a strike rate of more than 200. Jofra Archer, RR’s big signee in the auction, went for 76 runs in his 4 overs. RR’s bowling looked pedestrian and is a big step down from last year. Jofra Archer’s form will concern them as they are banking on him to fill the holes in their relatively weaker stock of bowlers in their squad. He also went for plenty of runs in the India-England series and Champions trophy.
RR begun their chase in a disastrous manner losing Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ryan Parg, both in the 2nd over of their inning. They lost Nitish Rana soon after in 5th over losing any hopes of mounting a serious challenge to SRH herculean total. Sanju Samson and Dhruv Jurel had a good partnership of 111 runs in 10 overs but it never really threatened to run down the target. It did ensure that RR don’t lose badly to put a serious dent in their net run rate which was a real threat at the fall of 3 early wickets. Shimran Hetmyr and Shubham Dubey played a good hand too in ensuring that RR do not fall too short of SRH scoring 42 off 23 and 34 of just 11 balls respectably. RR would be pleased by the good outing of their two new inclusions Dhruv Jurel and Shubham Dubey. Their batting looks good, they would have to address their bowling concerns to have any hopes of mounting a serious bid to the IPL trophy.
Match 3: CSK vs MI, the El Classico
The two giants of IPL, MI and CSK, met in the 3rd match of the opening weekend. CSK won the toss and elected to field first. MI had a poor start to their IPL campaign losing Rohit in the first over itself and the kept losing wickets at regular intervals. They huffed and puffed to reach 155-9 which seemed about 20-25 short of the par score. They could reach even to this score with some later order hitting from Deepak Chahar who scored 28 off 15 balls. The only other notable contribution was a 50 run partnership between Surya Kumar Yadav and Tilak Verma, both were dismissed by Noor Ahmad who had a terrific outing with the ball. He took 4 for 18 in this 4 overs. Khaleel Ahmad also had a good outing taking 3 for 29 runs in his allotted quota of 4 overs. Both are new inclusions to CSK and with Jadeja and Ashwin in the team as well, CSK’s bowling looks quite strong, especially in their home conditions
CSK lost Rahul Tripathi early but Rachin Ravindra and Ruturaj Gaekwad had a good partnership to put CSK on course for an easier victory. However they lost few quick wickets in the middle to make the match a bit interesting but it never really went too far ahead of them. It did reach the final over but CSK always seemed in control of the run chase. The debutant from Mumbai, Vignesh Puthur, had a terrific outing. He took 3 for 32 from his 4 overs. Interestingly, he has not played any cricket for his state side yet.
It was nothing new for MI to lose the opening match of their IPL campaign having done so since 2012. They missed Hardik and Bumrah in this match. Hardik was serving one match suspension due to slow over rate penalty from last year and Bumrah is yet to recover from his back issue.
