After a dominating performance in the league stage in IPL 2025, Shreyas Iyer’s Punjab Kings reached finally in the playoffs after 11 years. Finishing top of the table, the PBKS will now face off the Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore, who finished second on the league table and are strong favourites to go on and win it all.

Virat and his men will also be watching the skies of Chandigarh, and hoping for a clear day out in IPL. The match will be plaayes in Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, Mullanpur in Chandigarh.

Weather Reports Give Green Light to Clash

According to the weather reports by AccuWeather, the chances of rain are almost negligible with clear skies in Chandigarh. The temperature is expected to range between 36 to 26 degrees Celsius near the end of the match with low humidity. In case of rain spoiling the show, the Punjab Kings will automatically advance to the final as they finished above RCB in the league table.

In that case, RCB will then play against the winner of the Eliminator between Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Titans for a place in the finals.

Batting-Friendly Pitch May Dictate the Game

The pitch at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Stadium presents a batting-friendly ground, while still providing early opportunities for pace bowlers when the ball is harder and the pitch offers lateral movements.

The pitch has seen high-scoring games, with an average first-innings score hovering around 170. Despite this, crossing the 200-run mark has remained a rare sight, occurring only three times across nine matches played at the venue.

Dew is going to become a significant factor in the second innings. Teams winning the toss are likely to opt for bowling first, trying to play on the dry conditions early and avoid the slippery, bowler-unfriendly environment that dew creates later in the match.

Possible Playing XI

Royal Challengers Bengaluru:

Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, Mayank Agarwal, Rajat Patidar, Liam Livingstone / Tim Seifert/ Tim David, Jitesh Sharma (C), Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yash Dayal, Josh Hazlewood/Nuwan Thushara, Suyash Sharma

Punjab Kings:

Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh, Josh Inglis, Shreyas Iyer (c), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Azmatullah Omarzai, Harpreet Brar, Kyle Jamieson, Vyshak Vijaykumar/Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh