Rajasthan Royals won the toss and opted to bowl first in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 clash against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday. Rajasthan Royals made one change to their playing XI with Fazalhaq Farooqi coming in for Maheesh Theekshana. Riyan Parag, the stand-in captain for Sanju Samson, mentioned that the wicket looked a bit sticky and they would aim to adapt quickly. "We will bowl first. The wicket looks a bit sticky and should get better later on. It's back to our ethics now, if we can give our 100 percent, the results will take care of themselves. Sanju (Samson) bhai is recovering and hopefully he will be back soon," said Parag.
RCB captain Rajat Patidar expressed his wish to bowl first as well, acknowledging that the surface had been tricky and unpredictable this season. “We would have loved to bowl first as well, the surface has been tricky and unpredictable this season and we will try to adapt as quickly as we can. We have to be good at shot-selection. We are going with the same team,” said Patidar. RCB went in with the same team as their last match.
Here are the Impact substitutes for both the teams:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Impact Subs: Suyash Sharma, Rasikh Dar Salam, Manoj Bhandage, Jacob Bethell, Swapnil Singh
Rajasthan Royals Impact Subs: Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Akash Madhwal, Kumar Kartikeya, Kunal Singh Rathore
Teams:
Rajasthan Royals (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubham Dubey, Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag(c), Dhruv Jurel(w), Shimron Hetmyer, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jofra Archer, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Tushar Deshpande, Sandeep Sharma
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (Playing XI): Philip Salt, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar(c), Devdutt Padikkal, Jitesh Sharma(w), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Romario Shepherd, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal
