Shreyas Iyer and Rajat Patidar are like fire and water – one thrives on aggression, the other oozes calm. Yet both are remarkably effective as leaders, leading the two best teams of the season. IPL 18 couldn’t have asked for a more fitting showdown than a Punjab Kings (PBKS) vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru(RCB)Â face-off in its grand finale.
After more than two months, the prestigious Indian Premier League 2025 is all set to conclude with a blockbuster final between Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Punjab Kings (PBKS) at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Tuesday, June 03.
On the eve of the match at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Shreyas Iyer , PBKS skipper, true to himself, ratcheted up the rhetoric. He spoke of ‘fight,’ ‘war,’ and ‘taking the bull by the horns.’ Rajat Patidar RCB skipper, by contrast, sought to play down the build-up with a calm and restrained demeanour. He seemed to think of 100 words, settle on 20, and ultimately speak just 12.
PBKS vs RCB : Road to the Finale
Amped up rhetoric – or the lack of it – aside, the last encounter between these two sides was a one-sided affair, with RCB demolishing PBKS by eight wickets to book their place in the final. Punjab had to take a detour via Qualifier 2 to reach there. Now, there may be a case of Punjab holding the edge, propelled by the momentum of an imperious five-wicket win over the Mumbai Indians – especially after Iyer’s sublime batting on Sunday night.
Punjab often play with close to six uncapped players – two in the beginning (Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya), two in the middle (Shashank Singh and Nehal Wadhera) and two more in the end (Vijaykumar Vyshak and Harpreet Brar – in place of Yuzvendra Chahal).
After the debacle in Qualifier 1, the Shreyas Iyer-led side had to take the longer journey to the finals. They faced five-time champions Mumbai Indians (MI) in Qualifier 2 on Sunday. After being hammered for 203/6 in their 20 overs, Iyer played a captain’s innings of 87*, which pushed the side over the line and qualified for the finals after 11 years. Notably, with this win, PBKS pulled off the first-ever successful 200-plus run-chase against MI in IPL history.
It’s a tribute to the leadership of Iyer and head coach Ricky Ponting that they managed to inspire a bunch of unheralded players to give their best. How these six handle the RCB bowlers (Josh Hazlewood and Suyash Sharma) and batters (Virat Kohli and Phil Salt) could determine the outcome of the final.
On the other hand, RCB may not openly admit it, but the Virat Kohli angle is set to dominate the final. His wait for an IPL trophy has stretched over 18 years, and this might just be his best chance to finally add the elusive title to his collection. Those close to him say he is desirous, not desperate, for the IPL glory. Yet Virat Kohli – the RCB talisman and arguably the league’s biggest star – has never hidden how deeply he yearns for it, nor how much he regrets the missed opportunities, especially in 2016, the last time RCB had reached the final.
RCB managed to finish second on the points table, after registering nine wins and four losses from 14 games. They went on to beat Punjab Kings by eight wickets in a one-sided Qualifier 1 face-off. After dismissing the side for a mere 101 at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in Mullanpur, the Rajat Patidar-led side raced to victory with relative ease and 60 balls to spare.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru have met Punjab Kings thrice this season. The record is with RCB 2-1. It was only the first outing in the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium that Punjab were able to beat RCB. In that rain-marred game, RCB were destroyed by the Punjab pacers, getting reduced to 95/9 in a rain-marred 14-over game.
Punjab made easy work of it and chased it down in just 12.1 overs. The next one came in Mullanpur, where Punjab batted first, and on a tricky surface, they simply could not bat outside the powerplay. In the second innings, RCB batters showed maturity and professionally chased down a target of 158 runs, owing to Virat Kohli’s 73* – the batter’s best outing this season.
The third one came in Mullanpur, just a few nights back, where RCB pacers ripped Punjab a new one at their own home ground. Just like RCB, Punjab also have not enjoyed playing in their own home.
They faltered in just 14.1 overs, getting wrapped up for just 101 runs. In reply, RCB made easy work of it, finishing the match in just 10 overs.The fact that both teams play this fixture away from home adds drama to the clash. Ahmedabad is a venue where Punjab have enjoyed their time. On a flat batting track, Shreyas Iyer has scored in both the matches that he has featured in. RCB, on the other hand, have not played a single match at the venue this season, but they do boast of a better bowling attack.
What a season Royal Challengers Bengaluru have had. Incredible away record and a top 2 qualification for a team that was not given much of a chance at the start of the season. They comprehensively beat Punjab in their playoffs and now will be gunning for victory. Punjab, on the other hand, with their army of all-rounders, have played the game in a unique way. They lost 3 out of their 5 matches in Mullanpur but made that up in their away games, where they won 5 out of their 7 games
PBKS vs RCB : Head to Head
It is even-stevens between the two sides, with the head-to-head record locked at 18 wins each. At the Narendra Modi Stadium, PBKS have beaten RCB in the one game they’ve played against each other here. However, RCB hold a clear recent advantage, having beaten PBKS in five of their last six encounters since 2023.
| Matches Played | 36 |
| Won by Royal Challengers Bengaluru | 18 |
| Won by Punjab Kings | 18 |
| No Result | 00 |
| First-ever Fixture | May 05, 2008 |
| Most-recent Fixture | May 29, 2025 |
PBKS vs RCB : Pitch and Weather Report
The Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad is expected to be a batting-friendly surface. Six of the eight games here in IPL 2025 have been won by teams batting first, though just like the previous game, dew is likely to kick in, which will favour the chasing side. The captain who wins the toss should opt to bowl first.
The centre wicket of the colossal Narendra Modi Stadium will be used for the final, ensuring equal dimensions on both sides of the strip. It is a mixed-soil pitch, and the last time it was used – for the GT vs PBKS clash on March 25 – it yielded over 470 runs. Barring any unexpected rain, there’s little reason to believe Tuesday’s script will be any different.
The Indian Premier League final is expected to be affected by rain, according to a prediction from the Ahmedabad weather department on Monday, June 2. Speaking to India Today, weather department director Arunkumar Dasane said that conditions are likely to remain cloudy throughout the day, with light to moderate rainfall expected in isolated areas.
If the pitch remains under covers, it has the tendency to do odd things. While it is largely expected to be a batting track, the pitch might do a few funny things in the initial overs.
The Narendra Modi Stadium has been the highest-scoring of the regular venues this IPL, with the teams batting first passing 200 seven times in eight innings – they scored 196 in the other innings – and going on past 220 four times. The team batting first has won six of the eight matches, but the team winning the toss has tended to chase – possibly because of the difficulty of assessing totals in high-scoring conditions – doing so seven times in eight games.
PBKS have played twice here this season and won both times. They played their first match of the season here and scored 243 for 5 in a tone-setting performance, and returned for Qualifier 2, where they shrugged off a dispiriting defeat to RCB in Qualifier 1 by chasing down a target of 204 with an over to spare against MI.
RCB come into the contest having beaten PBKS twice in three meetings, but they will be disadvantaged by not having played in Ahmedabad yet this season. The pitch for the final will be a mixed-soil (red and black) surface in the middle of the square – this is where PBKS opened their season with a win over Gujarat Titans (GT).
A two-hour spell of unseasonal rain delayed the start of Qualifier 2. There is a chance of rain again on the day of the final, but a low one according to forecasts. A reserve day is in place should the final not be completed on Tuesday.
PBKS vs RCB : Big Picture : RCB and PBKS battles for their 1st title in IPL
Seven teams have their names etched on the IPL trophy. One of them doesn’t exist anymore. Two weren’t part of the league when it began. Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Punjab Kings (PBKS) have been IPL ever-presents. They’ve made four finals between them, but neither has won the title.
RCB and PBKS have instead come to be grouped with Delhi Capitals (DC), another trophy-less OG franchise, into what social media refers to as the IPL’s Holy Trinity. There’s a certain amount of derision in the nickname, but it’s acquired a softer, warmer feel over the years, with even fans of the three teams using it with a sense of irony and solidarity with their fellow sufferers.
On Tuesday night, the trinity won’t be a trinity anymore. One of RCB and PBKS will have finally won the IPL, on their 18th attempt. The other… well, you wouldn’t want to be in that camp.
For a PBKS fan, it would be another pre-season reset – they’ve had too many to keep count of – coming to nothing, and an anticlimactic finish to a campaign full of ingredients that would make for a rollicking sports film: a coach who went out of his way to bring in a captain with a point to prove, the two of them creating a space for a group of uncapped, unheralded local players to grow into starring roles, bringing hope to a team that had till then only known misery.
For an RCB fan, it would be a fourth defeat in a fourth final, and all the promise of a new way – a team that finally found the perfect balance between bat and ball, between top-order flash and batting depth, between superstars and support cast – coming to the same old end.
It would be, above all, another bitter blow for Virat Kohli, who has put together another season of insatiable run-scoring – a record eighth with 500-plus runs – at the tail-end of a monumental 12 months that have included T20 World Cup and Champions Trophy triumphs on the one hand and a bittersweet Test retirement on the other. Destiny, surely, cannot be planning an 18th trophy-less IPL season for the man with 18 on his back
Two teams, then, are tantalisingly close to finding the fulfillment that has eluded them for 17 years, but one will fall at the last step of the journey. Seldom has an IPL final promised so much joy and so much heartbreak all at once.
PBKS vs RCB : In the Spotlight : Rajat Patidar and Yuzvendra Chahal
Rajat Patidar‘s winning six in Qualifier 1 against PBKS was a symbolic moment for RCB, because their batting approach through IPL 2025 has mirrored that of the captain who took over at the start of the season. He set the tone early on too, with Player-of-the-Match performances that helped RCB beat Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at Chepauk for the first time in 17 years and Mumbai Indians in Mumbai for the first time in ten years.
His returns have tailed off since, though, and his numbers for the season – 286 runs at an average of 23.83 and a strike rate of 142.28 – don’t quite capture his impact. The dip won’t faze him though; he’ll come out playing his shots, and that’s just how RCB might need to bat against a powerhouse PBKS line-up in Ahmedabad, which has been one of the highest-scoring venues this year.
Yuzvendra Chahal has won the IPL once, technically, having played one match for MI when they won the title in 2013. He won’t feel like he’s won it, though: he’s been in two previous finals, with RCB and Rajasthan Royals (RR), and lost both of them. On Tuesday he’ll be up against RCB, with whom he played for eight seasons.
A hand injury kept him out of PBKS’ defeat to RCB in Qualifier 1, but he made match-winning contributions against his two other old teams either side of that. In Chahal’s last game before the injury break, his middle-overs craft helped slow RR down after a rollicking start to a chase of 220 – PBKS eventually won by 10 runs.
Then, on his comeback, he took the big wicket of Suryakumar Yadav in Qualifier 2 against MI. Chahal has already hurt RCB once this season, taking 2 for 11 in a low-scoring, rain-shortened contest in Bengaluru; can he do it again in the biggest match of the season
PBKS vs RCB : Vital stats that matters
- Josh Hazlewood (21 wickets) needs to take a five-for to wrest the Purple Cap away from Prasidh Krishna. While that may not happen, Hazlewood could yet play a key role in shaping the final. He’s already taken six wickets in three games against PBKS this season, and dismissed Josh Inglis and Shreyas Iyer twice each. His T20 record against Iyer is phenomenal: 11 runs conceded in 22 balls, and four wickets.
- Suyash Sharma has had a marked preference for bowling to right-hand batters (average of 31.57, economy rate of 7.80) over left-hand batters (193.00, 9.81) during IPL 2025, and the contrast is even more exaggerated against PBKS (five wickets at 7.40 and an economy rate of 5.84 against RHBs; no wickets and an economy rate of 7.09 against LHBs).
- It’s no coincidence that Nehal Wadhera, the only left-hand batter in PBKS’ middle order, hit Suyash for 21 in 12 balls during PBKS’ only victory over RCB this season. He fell for low scores in the other two meetings, across which Suyash took a combined 5 for 43 in seven overs.
- Of the 28 batters to have faced at least 50 balls in overs 7-10 in IPL 2025, Kohli’s strike rate of 109.61 is the third-lowest, just above those of Ajinkya Rahane (102.97) and KL Rahul (107.31). If Kohli survives the powerplay, his partners at the crease during the early middle overs, and PBKS’ choice of bowlers in that period, could be crucial to the flow of the game.
- Patidar can destroy spin on his day, but he goes into the final with fairly quiet records against Harpreet Brar (18 balls, 21 runs, one dismissal) and Yuzvendra Chahal (27 balls, 40 runs, two dismissals).
- Â Arshdeep’s form has nosedived after the break. He has gone wicketless in four of his last five outings. His record vs RCB (eight wickets from 10 games) and at the venue (three wickets from four games) don’t make a great reading either
- Rajat Patidar had a flying start to the season, but couldn’t quite build on thereafter – 161 runs in the first four games and then 125 in the next nine innings
- Shreyas Iyer has been dismissed four times in six IPL innings by Josh Hazlewood and has scored only 11 off 22 against the Aussie pacer
- This is just the second time in these 15 years that neither of the two IPL finalists have won a trophy previously. The last instance was 2016 (RCB vs SRH)
PBKS vs RCB : Team News for PBKS and RCB
Royal Challengers Bengaluru
Injuries/Unavailability:Â There is uncertainty over the availability of Tim David but rest of the players are available for the match.The one major injury doubt ahead of the final surrounds Tim David, who missed RCB’s last two games with a hamstring injury. If he’s fit, he is likely to come straight back into their line-up at the expense of Liam Livingstone
Tactics & Match-ups: Virat Kohli has an average of 36 (1116 from 35 games) against PBKS but in the recent times, he has had stupendous success, averaging 62.5 runs (375 runs from eight games). In bowling, Josh Hazlewood will be the thorn in the PBKS flesh, having taken 12 wickets in five play-off games. A truly big match player.
RCB Probable Playing XI : Virat Kohli, Philip Salt, Rajat Patidar(c), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma(w), Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yash Dayal, Josh Hazlewood, Suyash Sharma.
Impact Player : Mayank Agarwal
Injuries/Unavailability: Yuzvendra Chahal is a doubtful starter but PBKS have a good back-up in Harpreet Brat. Rest of the Punjab players are available. Two days after winning Qualifier 2 against MI at the same ground, PBKS are likely to stick to the same combination. Chahal played against MI and bowled his full quota, but PBKS bowling coach James Hopes revealed after the game that he had been at less than full fitness. If Chahal’s hand doesn’t allow him to play the final, PBKS could either go with just one spinner or bring in Harpreet Brar.
Tactics & Match-ups: Punjab’s young openers, Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya – otherwise one of the breakout combinations of the season – have failed in their last two outings. The team will hope the law of averages works in their favour, and the duo fires when it matters most. Shreyas Iyer, meanwhile, has played two commanding unbeaten innings (97* and 87*) at this venue this season. PBKS will be counting on their captain to rise to the occasion, one final time
PBKS Probable Playing XI : Priyansh Arya, Josh Inglis(w), Shreyas Iyer(c), Nehal Wadhera, Marcus Stoinis, Shashank Singh, Azmatullah Omarzai, Kyle Jamieson, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal.
Impact Player:Â Prabhsimran Singh
PBKS vs RCB Fantasy Playing XI : Phil Salt, Prabhsimran Singh, Shreyas Iyer (Captain), Priyansh Arya, Rajat Patidar, Mayank Agarwal, Marcus Stoinis (Vice-Captain), Romario Shepherd, Josh Hazlewood, Arshdeep Singh, Yash Dayal
PBKS vs RCB : Probable Best Players of the Match
Probable Best Batter of the Match: Virat Kohli
After registering six consecutive 40-plus scores, Virat Kohli scored a 12-ball 12 in Qualifier 1 and didn’t look anywhere near his fluent best. However, the star batter is known for playing an important knock on the biggest of occasions. If he gets going, PBKS bowlers will be in a tough position. Kohli is currently the fifth-highest run-getter in IPL 2025, having amassed 614 runs from 14 matches at an average of 55.81 and a strike rate of 146.53.
Probable Best Bowler of the Match: Kyle Jamieson
Tall New Zealand pacer Kyle Jamieson can prove to be extremely dangerous with the ball against RCB. Came in as a replacement for his injured countryman Lockie Ferguson earlier in the season, Â Jamieson has picked up two wickets in the three matches played so far. In Qualifier 2 against the Mumbai Indians, he bowled a spell of 1/30 in his four overs, removing Tilak Varma. With the Ahmedabad pitch expected to have significant bounce, the Kiwi bowler will look to make the most of it and pick important wickets for his side.
PBKS vs RCB : Match Prediction
- If PBKS bat first, they are expected to score around 190-200. After chasing down 204 runs in the last game, they will be confident of scoring big.
- If RCB bats first, they are expected to post more than 200 runs. RCB batsmen have been very consistent this season and will look to deliver again.
Scenario 1
- RCB win the toss and bowl
- PP Score – 60-70
- PBKS – 200-210
- RCB win the match
Scenario 2
- PBKSÂ win the toss and bowl
- PP score – 65-75
- RCB – 205-215
- PBKS win the match
Also Read:Â MI vs PBKS : Shikhar Dhawan Picks The Winner Between Upcoming MI & PBKS Encounter