Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sanju Samson walk out to open for RR. Jaiswal hasn’t played much T20 since the last IPL, having fallen behind in the pecking order for India’s first XI. He had an early dismissal in RR’s season opener in Hyderabad and they really need him to find his groove again. Samson had a cracking start to the season, making 66 off 37 against SRH.
Spencer Johnson will bowl the first over for KKR this time. Jaiswal to face.
7.00 pm KKR have chosen to bowl. Ajinkya Rahane reckons there will be a lot of dew. Moeen Ali replaces Sunil Narine, who is unwell.
Huge cheers for Riyan Parag at the toss from his home crowd. RR have made one change too, Wanindu Hasaranga is playing for Fazalhaq Farooqi.
KKR’s bowling first XI 1 Quinton de Kock, 2 Venkatesh Iyer, 3 Ajinkya Rahane, 4, Rinku Singh, 5 Moeen Ali, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Ramandeep Singh, 8 Spencer Johnson, 9 Vaibhav Arora, 10 Harshit Rana, 11 Varun Chakravarthy.
Their impact player options are: Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manish Pandey, Anukul Roy, Luvnith Sisodia, and Anrich Nortje. Raghuvanshi the most likely to come in as Impact batter for the chase.
RR’s batting first XI: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 Sanju Samson, 3 Nitish Rana, 4 Riyan Parag, 5 Dhruv Jurel, 6 Shimron Hetmyer, 7 Wanindu Hasaranga, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 Maheesh Theekshana, 10 Thushar Deshpande, 11 Sandeep Sharma.
Jigar: “Despite Impact Sub, RR battling looks very thin with Hasranga batting at 7 in batting XI”
RR’s Impact Player strategy is interesting. Their batting first XI seems a batter light, so if they need Shubham Dubey’s hitting skills they can bring him in for a batter who is dismissed and still have five bowlers for the second innings. Or if they don’t need Dubey’s batting, then they can bring in either Akash Madhwal or Kumar Kartikeya to give themselves a sixth bowling option.
Jawahar: “KKR’s bowling line is extremely weak. I think RR will score a punishing score that KKR can never reach. I am not sure the strategy from KKR on team selection is going to work.”
Himanshu: “I disagree with you, Binoy! CSK plays the most number of home matches at multiple venues.” Haha, nice one!
Here’s a Hasaranga nugget from the preview: Hasaranga’s wrong’un makes him a compelling option for RR with Russell averaging only 9.25 against googlies in the IPL (since 2022) and striking at only 115.63, according to ESPNcricinfo’s data. Against legbreaks, though, he crunches them at 153.70 and averages 41.50.
Jashan: “RR’s impact sub strategy looks genius to me. if your top order performs well, you’ve a good score, and pure 6 bowlers.” That’s the theory, but it’s not always worked out for them.
Kumar : “I would like to see 180-180 kind of pitches please. No more SRH roads. BCCI should penalise SRH curators”
6.45 pm Karthik: “Can we expect the pitches to wear out as the tournament progresses? Or the fact that many teams have more than 1 home ground prevent that?” Are you bored of the big-hitting already?! So, while pitches will slow down a touch, I don’t expect it to be a major slowdown, because like you say a few teams have a couple of home venues, and a lot of venues have multiple pitches on the square.
Kallu: “Which franchises play home matches at multiple venues?” RR play in Guwahati and Jaipur, PBKS play in Mullanpur and Dharamsala, DC play in Delhi and Visakhapatnam.
Alex: “I’d be tempted to pick 11 batsmen. Given the pitches, why not go for broke, have 11 trying to smash 300 plus then defend it with average medium pace bowling.” You’ll see 350 in a hurry then.
Azizullah Azizi: “Will Gurbaz make it to the playing XI today?” I doubt KKR will make a change after just one defeat, so QDK likely to get another go. I have seen signs that Moeen Ali is playing. Dwayne Bravo gave him a cap. We’ll find out at the toss who he is replacing.
Nilashish: “I, for one, am not much amused by the mindless bashing. The IPL scorecard looks more or less like the 90’s ODI scorecards. When a bowler of the stature of Rabada comments, we should take a note atleast. Dare I say, I’m thankful my idols like McGrath or Pollock aren’t playing on these kind of pitches.”
Nilesh Garg: “@Alex, we often think like that, but in high scoring games its the bowling which makes the difference – whichever team bowls better wins since in favourable batter conditions every batter will turn up with a contribution and hence you need to bowl better than the other to restrict the batters.”
Vineeth Nalluri: “Impact Player rule has got more to do with these high totals than the nature pf pitches, I reckon. It simply adds one extra batter to every team, with most teams having 9 players who can bat, and that gives the top order the extra freedom to go after every ball. As far as I’m concerned I’m happy to see these high scoring thrillers as long as both teams get these scores. Thoughts?”
6.35 pm IPL 2025 has a lot of new loyalties following the churn at the mega auction. Nitish Rana played for KKR for seven seasons. He’s a new Royal this year.
Hiren: “Has Samson been dropped as a captain to make Parag captain or is it temporary due to Samson injury???” Samson hasn’t fully recovered from his finger surgery. He’s been cleared to play as a batter only, so until he’s fit to field/keep wickets, Parag will lead the team (two more matches). Big day for Riyan Parag – captaining RR in his home city of Guwahati.
6.30 pm Good evening, and welcome to ESPNcricinfo’s live coverage of match no. 6 of IPL 2025 – Rajasthan Royals hosting Kolkata Knight Riders in Guwahati.
Both teams lost their opening fixtures by sizeable margins: RR to the marauding Sunrisers in Hyderabad and KKR to RCB in Kolkata. First points of the season up for grabs tonight for someone. Read up on everything you need to know in our preview of the game.
Speaking of this season, it’s had quite the start. IPL 2024 finished as the most explosive season of all time, but IPL 2025 has left it in the dust so far. More boundaries, more big overs, more 200+ strike rates. Come on, bowlers, what have you got this year?
Some more good pre-match reading, an interview with KKR’s 20-year old Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who professes in dead earnest that he’s in love with the game. There’s also an anecdote in there about his first meeting with KKR’s owner Shah Rukh Khan.
