IPL 2025, Final: RCB's players celebrating (Source: IPL)
Royal Challengers Bengaluru lifted their maiden Indian Premier League title with a six-run win against Punjab Kings in the final of the 2025 edition at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. This marked an iconic end to an 17-season title drought.
RCB posted 190/9 after being sent in to bat first. Virat Kohli top-scored with 43 off 35. There were several short cameos played by Rajat Patidar (26 off 16), Liam Livingstone (25 off 15), Jitesh Sharma (24 off 10), and Romario Shepherd (17 off nine). Arshdeep Singh (3/40 in four overs) and Kyle Jamieson (3/48 in four overs) shared six wickets between them.
PBKS fell just short by six runs. Apart from Shashank Singh, who remained unbeaten on 61 off 30, no one clicked for the Shreyas Iyer-led side. Iyer departed for one off two in a big blow to his team while Josh Inglis (39 off 23) was dismissed after threatening the RCB bowlers for a little while. Krunal Pandya struck out as the most impressive bowler from RCB, securing a couple of wickets in his four-over quota.
Key moments from PBKS vs RCB, Final of IPL 2025: 1. Omarzai’s athletic brilliance ends Kohli’s stayA sliding catch by Azmatullah Omarzai after sprinting three pitches to his right brought about the end of Kohli's laggard innings in the middle. His bouncer got too big on Kohli, hitting the top-half of the bat and ballooning up towards Omarzai.
It seemed as if RCB would end up with a below-par score with all of their four top-order batters in the shed by the 15th over. However, Jitesh and Shepherd ensured the momentum continued to flow along with RCB with their brisk knocks.
An almost nothing delivery by Shepherd brought about the massive wicket of Iyer. The PBKS skipper, who led his side to an iconic win in Qualifier 2 with a power-packed 87-run knock, had to depart for a cheap score. Iyer's wicket was a huge setback for PBKS, and his side could never really recover from this.
Shashank had a mountain to climb after he came out to bat in the 13th over. The asking rate had climbed to a significant amount. However, he stayed put despite the fall of wickets around him. Shashank ended up unbeaten on 61 off 30.
