IPL 2025, RCB vs PBKS Final Live Updates: Virat Kohli chases history as first-time champions set to be crowned

IPL Final, RCB vs PBKS, Royal Challengers Bengaluru vs Punjab Kings: Follow Latest Updates.

Welcome to the IPL 2025 Final, where it is RCB vs PBKS to decide which team gives their city a reason to spend the night celebrating, and which one will spend another year of disappointment, wondering when it will be their turn to taste that kind of joy. The stakes couldn’t be higher, with two teams who have never lifted the trophy, finally trying to get over that hump, and with no promise of being back at this stage any time soon. Hope you have your popcorn ready.

When it comes down to the game itself, the Narendra Modi Stadium will once again host the IPL final, the third time in four years. In the first two finals, in 2022 and 2023, the team chasing lifted the trophy, going against the wisdom that runs on the board do the trick. This year, despite six of the seven games in the regular season having been won by the team first, the wet conditions and presence of dew after Ahmedabad’s rain meant that Punjab successfully chased a target in excess of 200 against a strong Mumbai Indians bowling unit. Therefore, the toss-winning captain, be it Shreyas Iyer or Rajat Patidar, will likely prefer to chase, to know what they are gunning for. Expect plenty of runs on a pitch that has seen an average first innings score of nearly 220 through this tournament, and with the firepower both sides have to offer, there is no reason to believe it won’t be something similar.

RCB will have the confidence of absolutely thrashing Punjab in their Qualifier 1 game in Mullanpur, where they bowled them out for 102 before going on to chase it with remarkable ease on a strange track. Here, they will likely not have the same joy in flatter conditions, but might have the mental edge nonetheless in the wake of that performance. Conversely, it has been nearly a week since that game, and RCB have had all that time to think and prepare, while Punjab went out and played another game of cricket: oftentimes, that added momentum through having an extra game can be so worthwhile.

So when it comes down to it, the most common thing said about finals is that anything can happen when it gets rolling, and nobody will know this better than RCB. They want to get their hands on a trophy, to celebrate with Virat Kohli who has been the franchise talisman for so long, to reward the loyal, cricket-crazy fans in Bengaluru and all over India. If anyone will stop them, it will be Shreyas Iyer, the captain who has established himself as the man to go to for this kind of thing, with his experience just a year ago of lifting the title, and the dangerous Punjab Kings team behind him built on a foundation of remarkable Indian talent. There is much to like about this matchup, and the stakes really couldn’t be higher. Expect some magic.

RCB vs PBKS Probable XIs IPL Final

RCB Probable XI and Impact Player: Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, Mayank Agarwal, Rajat Patidar (c), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yash Dayal, Josh Hazlewood, Suyash Sharma

PBKS Probable XI and Impact Player: Prabhsimran Singh, Priyansh Arya, Josh Inglis (wk), Shreyas Iyer (c), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Azmatullah Omarzai, Kyle Jamieson, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, Vijaykumar Vyshak