Narine To Open With De Kock Or Gurbaz? KKR's Likely Playing XI For IPL 2025 Opener Against RCB
Narine was in red-hot form for KKR last year. He opened the innings for Knight Riders in all 15 matches and, with the help of one century and three fifties, scored 488 runs.
West Indies great Sunil Narine will open the innings for Kolkata Knight Riders in the first match of IPL 2025 on Saturday (March 22), but it will be interesting to see who out of Quinton de Kock and Rahmanullah Gurbaz partners up. Both de Kock and Gurbaz are very explosive top-order wicketkeeper-batters and it will be a tough choice to pick one between the two. In the first match of IPL 2025, the defending champions will have high expectations from Narine, who was in red-hot form with the bat last year and also won the MVP award. If Narine manages to repeat the 2024 show this year as well, then KKR will have high chances of retaining the IPL title.
Veteran Indian batter Ajinkya Rahane will lead KKR in IPL 2025, and there are high chances that he will bat at No. 3 for the Kolkata-based franchise. Rahane struggled for consistency with CSK in the IPL 2024 but was in red-hot form for Mumbai in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy last year. The KKR team management will expect the former India Test vice-captain to score runs at a quick pace at least, even if he fails to score big runs.
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Madhya Pradesh all-rounder Venkatesh Iyer, who joined the franchise for Rs 23.75 crore in the mega auction last year, will be a key batter in the middle order along with three retained players – Rinku Singh, Andre Russell and Ramandeep Singh. The performance of the three Rs in the middle overs will play a big role in KKR’s performance this season.
In the bowling, the three-time champions will bank upon the experience of Varun Chakaravarthy and Narine, who arguably are the two most dangerous spinners in IPL 2025, whereas Harshit Rana and uncapped Indian pacer Vaibhav Arora, like the 2024 season, will lead the fast bowling attack this year as well.
As a replacement for Mitchell Starc, who joined Delhi Capitals in the IPL 2025 mega auction, KKR have signed South Africa’s Anrich Nortje and Australia’s Spencer Johnson, and one of them could make their IPL debut for Knight Riders on Saturday.
As for the impact player, KKR could consider including Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manish Pandey, Anukul Roy, Mayank Markande or Chetan Sakariya, depending on the situation.
KKR’s likely playing XI for the IPL 2025 match against RCB: Sunil Narine, Quinton de Kock (WK), Ajinkya Rahane (C), Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Anrich Nortje, Vaibhav Arora
Impact players: Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manish Pandey, Anukul Roy, Mayank Markande
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