Ravi Shastri can't believe RCB dropped Bhuvneshwar Kumar after Ajinkya Rahane, Sunil Narine slay pacers

Former India head coach Ravi Shastri could not believe that Royal Challengers Bengaluru started IPL 2025, keeping star bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar out of their playing XI against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. In the first match of the 18th season of IPL, Bhuvneshwar Kumar did not find a place in RCB's XI despite captain Rajat Patidar winning the toss and opting to field first. Due to the Impact Player rule, teams fielding first prefer an extra bowler in their XI to provide extra cushion. But not RCB. They picked just four specialist bowlers, with Krunal Pandya and Liam Livingstone as the all-rounders.

Josh Hazlewood led the pace attack, but what surprised Shastri was the selection of Yash Dayal and Rasikh Salam Dar ahead of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who was bought in the mega auction for a whopping ₹10.75 crore. The 35-year-old is the fourth-highest wicket-taker in the league's history and leads the list among Indian pacers. In his career, Bhuvneshwar has played 176 matches and taken 181 matches in the league.

The absence of Bhuvneshwar Kumar was felt immediately when RCB despite getting off to a brilliant start with the new ball restricting KKR to 9/1 in the first three overs, were taken to the cleaners in the second half of the powerplay because of the lack of a proper third seamer.

Hazlewood and Dayal had KKR's top-order hopping on a lively pitch. Hazlewood, in fact, dismissed Quinton de Kock in the first over while Narine struggled to put bat to ball. But the momentum of the match shifted completely when new RCB captain Rajat Patidar turned to Rasikh Salam Dar in the fourth over of the match.

KKR captain Rahane got stuck into the youngster, hitting him for two sixes and a four. The last three overs went for 51 runs as KKR finished the powerplay at 60/1.

"Hard to understand why Bhuvneshar Kumar is not playing. He is vastly experienced. He should have been there," Shasri said on commentary.

There was no official word from the RCB camp about Bhuvneshwar. As far as his fitness is concerned, he looked in fine rhythm during RCB's nets session on Friday.

This is for the first time KKR is facing RCB in the opening match of an IPL season since 2008.Patidar has replaced Faf du Plessis as RCB skipper, while Ajinkya Rahane took over from Shreyas Iyer, who led KKR to their third IPL title last year.