Patidar, Iyer, and the calm before the storm

Cricket in India doesn't need its participants to hype it. It needs no promotion. You can move matches at the last moment, and still draw 40,000-50,000 people for an IPL playoff match in which the home team is not playing. So there is no need - and indeed no training - for players to participate in weigh-in kind of events.

So it was a slightly awkward, friendly even, press conference with both the finalist captains sitting together with the IPL 2025 trophy between them. One of the captains, Punjab Kings' (PBKS) Shreyas Iyer, had played the T20 innings of his life and left the ground just 15 hours ago only to come back for the press conference. He had struggled to come down from that high, getting only four hours of sleep.

The other captain, the soft-spoken Rajat Patidar of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), is in his first season as the full-time captain of a franchise that can be intimidating to lead just by the virtue of its following, expectations and superstars in the side. To borrow from the kids' lexicon, Patidar doesn't have the aura of an RCB captain, but he has produced the best results RCB have ever had in an IPL season.

Both captains chose to play close to the body for the most part.

Patidar said RCB were not looking at the stage of the event. They respected the fans, they were grateful for them, but they were not letting the expectations bog them down.

The closest the captains got to gamesmanship was when they didn't offer any updates on the fitness of their players, not wanting to reveal the make-up of their XIs - or XIIs - for the final.

Iyer, though, got the closest to being feisty.

When asked if the familiarity with Virat Kohli brought a level of comfort or intensity, he said, "When you are on the field, it's all about the rivalry. It's not about comfort. At all. When you step onto the field, you are at a war, and you fight to win. So, I will put in everything, and I will give in everything to see to it that my team wins."

Kohli and Patidar's team crushed PBKS, also looking for their first IPL title, in Qualifier 1 on a spicy pitch.

Asked if Josh Hazlewood and Suyash Sharma, their destroyers from that match, were a matter of concern, Iyer said, "I would just like to say that we are on a different wicket right now. Definitely they have been bowling very well throughout. It's important to adapt as quickly as possible and see to it that you are up for the challenge. And take the bull by the horns.

"You can't say this is how we will play because the situation can be anything and we have to play according to the situation. It's not like we are going with a plan and then we don't pivot if things go up or down. Our players are youngsters with fearless nature, but they have gained experience and they have adapted. So, we can't go with a straight plan. We have to go there and see how we are playing the wicket."

A little over five months ago, the same captains had come face to face for the final of Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Iyer's Mumbai won then despite a 40-ball 81 from Patidar for Madya Pradesh. "I told Shreyas earlier," Patidar said, "that it feels the same. The captains are the same, the stage is the final, but the only difference is, it was Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, this is the IPL."

Of course Patidar meant the difference is massive.