IPL 2025: The 18th season of IPL will have a colourful start today, Bollywood stars will shine in the opening ceremony
IPL 2025: The IPL, called the festival of cricket, is starting from today. There will be an opening ceremony at the Eden Gardens Stadium in Kolkata and then the first match will be played which will be between KKR and RCB. However, rain can cause a hindrance in it.Bollywood stars will be seen performing in the opening ceremony and will celebrate the completion of 18 years of IPL.
Vishal Shrestha, Jagran, Kolkata: There is an old saying – the feet of a child are visible in the cradle itself. When the Indian Premier League (IPL) started in 2008, everyone realized that it is a horse for a long race. After the IPL, many T20 leagues started, but no one could achieve popularity like this. The world’s biggest cricket league has now grown up by turning 18 years old in 2025.
Its new season will have a colourful start on Saturday at the historic Eden Gardens Stadium. Bollywood stars will shine in the opening ceremony, after which last year’s champion Kolkata Knight Riders will play the first match of the new season against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
IPL 2025: These stars will shine
According to information received from Bengal Cricket Association sources, singer Shreya Ghoshal, actress Disha Patani and Punjabi pop singer Karan Aujla will perform in the opening ceremony. There is also talk of singer Arijit Singh, actor Varun Dhawan and actress Shraddha Kapoor performing with them. Actor and Kolkata team owner Shahrukh Khan will host the program. There is also a buzz about actor Salman Khan coming to Eden Gardens to promote his new film ‘Sikander’.
The opening ceremony will start at 6 pm and will last for about 35 minutes. The match will start at 7.30 pm. 10 teams will play a total of 74 matches in 13 cities of the country for 65 days. The grand finale will be held at Eden Gardens on May 25.
IPL 2025: Rain can spoil the fun
The sky of Kolkata has been cloudy for the last two days and it is drizzling. The Meteorological Department has forecast light or moderate rain with storm in and around Kolkata on Saturday. In view of the possibility of rain, Eden Gardens curator Sujan Mukherjee is fully alert with his team. The pitch is being kept covered throughout the day.
IPL 2025: Eye will be on new rules and new captains
At least seven teams will take the field with new captains in IPL 2025. Some of these players will lead their team in only a few matches due to various reasons. The most surprising decision was made by RCB by making Rajat Patidar the captain. Star batsman Virat Kohli is also included in the RCB team and it will be interesting to see how Patidar captains the team. Axar Patel will captain Delhi Capitals while Shreyas Iyer, who made KKR the champion in 2024, will take charge of Punjab Kings this time.
The captaincy of the Kolkata team has been handed over to Ajinkya Rahane this time. Riyan Parag will captain Rajasthan Royals in the opening matches due to Sanju Samson’s finger injury. Hardik Pandya was banned for one match for slow over rate last season and hence he will not be able to play in Mumbai Indians’ first match. Suryakumar Yadav will lead Mumbai in the match against Chennai Super Kings on Sunday. IPL’s most expensive player Rishabh Pant will lead Lucknow Supergiants this season.
IPL 2025: New rules will be implemented
The most important of the new rules is to allow saliva on the ball again. Saliva was banned due to the Kovid-19 epidemic and after that this will be the first occasion when bowlers will be allowed to do so. – The BCCI decided to lift the ban on saliva on Thursday after getting consent from most of the IPL captains in this matter.
In other rules, in matches played in the evening, if the umpires feel that dew is affecting the game, then they can allow the use of a new ball from the 11th over of the second innings. This rule will not apply to matches played in the morning. Apart from this, teams can also use the Decision Review System (DRS) for height and offside wide. At the same time, the rule of impact player will remain applicable as before.
IPL 2025: Eyes will be on Rohit and Virat
This time eyes will also be on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Both these batsmen, who were part of India’s victory campaign in the T20 World Cup last year, retired from the shortest format internationally after that. After this, they will be seen playing T20 cricket for the first time.GE to supply 99 GE-404 engines to HAL by March-end after two-year delay | Here are 5 things to know
