Is Bhuvneshwar Kumar playing today’s KKR vs RCB IPL 2025 match?

Veteran pace Bhuvneshwar Kumar didn't find a place in Royal Challengers Bengaluru's (RCB) playing XI against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the opening match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. The match is being played at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on March 22.

Bhuvneshwar was roped in by the Bengaluru-based franchise for a whopping ₹10.75 crore. However, he was not included in their starting lineup for their first game. The 35-year-old's name didn't feature in the list of impact substitutes as well.

Rasikh Dar and Yash Dayal were the two Indian fast bowlers in RCB's playing XI alongside Josh Hazlewood. Rajat Patidar won the toss and chose to field first against the defending champions.

Speaking at the toss, he said:

"We have decided to bowl first. The wicket looks decent. It's a hard surface. Bowling first we will try and stop them as early as possible. Feels amazing to lead RCB. Great opportunity for me to learn from the freats. Preparation has been great. Last fifteen days we have gelled very well as a team. I am pretty much confused with the combination. We are going with three fast bowlers and two spinners."

Here are the two playing XIs for the match:

KKR: Venkatesh Iyer, Quinton de Kock (wk), Ajinkya Rahane (c), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, and Spencer Johnson.

Impact subs: Anrich Nortje, Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora, Anukul Roy, and Luvnith Sisodia.

RCB: Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, Rajat Patidar (c), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Rasikh Salam, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal, and Suyash Sharma.

Impact subs: Devdutt Padikkal, Abhinandan Singh, Manoj Bhandage, Romario Shepherd, and Swapnil Singh.

---

Bhuvneshwar Kumar has the most IPL wickets among Indian fast bowlers

Bhuvneshwar Kumar has a stellar IPL career. He is the fourth-highest wicket-taker in the league's history, picking up 181 wickets from 176 games at an economy rate of 7.56.

It is worth mentioning that no other Indian pacer has claimed more wickets than Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the league's history. He was part of the SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) camp last year. He finished with season with 11 wickets from 16 outings at an economy rate of 9.35.

Hyderabad was the runner-up of IPL 2024 and suffered an eight-wicket loss to KKR in the final.