The stakes will be high when Royal Challengers Bangalore take on Sunrisers Hyderabad (RCB vs SRH) in the inaugural Indian Premier League 2026 (IPL 2026). Top level cricket will return to the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium for rivalry matches.
Both sides have top-order batsmen in their line-ups, and the Chinnaswamy pitch is expected to be a batting-friendly ground. Therefore, the match may be full of boundaries around the park, which may affect the omission of the opening ceremony.
RCB vs SRH Preview:
Royal Challengers Bangalore or Sunrisers Hyderabad, who will win the match tonight? Right now this is a million dollar question. In the past, whenever these two teams faced each other in a cricket match, it would be a high-scoring match on most occasions. For example, take match number 30 of the IPL 2024 season, when both the teams scored more than 250 runs in their respective innings. Hyderabad scored 287 runs in the first innings and won the match by 25 runs and RCB came very close to chasing the target as they had 262 runs on the board.
In their last three encounters, at least one team has scored more than 200. SRH emerged victorious in their last match on May 23, 2025. Ishan Kishan’s unbeaten 94 ensured SRH scored 231 runs, which was enough to beat RCB.
Ahead of the important match, there are many similarities between these two teams such as both the franchises have retained their main batsmen, both the sides have a weak bowling department for the match, and both the teams are likely to give debut caps to their respective emerging cricketers.
While RCB will play the match with their leading fast bowler Josh Hazlewood, SRH will be playing their bowling without Pat Cummins. In the absence of the mainstay candidates, they will have to prepare a new bowling combination.
RCB vs SRH Toss Result Today IPL 2026 Match 1
RCB captain Rajat Patidar won the toss and decided to bowl first.
“We will bowl first. There are many good players in the team, everyone is fit and looking forward to the game. We will try our best to put another star on the jersey,” RCB captain Rajat Patidar said after winning the crucial toss.
RCB Playing XI vs SRH Today IPL 2026 Match 1
Phil Salt, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar (captain), Jitesh Sharma (wicketkeeper), Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Abhinandan Singh, Jacob Duffy, Suyyash Sharma.
SRH Playing XI vs RCB Today IPL 2026 Match 1
Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan (WK/Captain), Heinrich Klaasen, Aniket Verma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Salil Arora, Harsh Dubey, Harshal Patel, Jaydev Unadkat, Ishan Malinga
RCB vs SRH Impact Players Today IPL 2026 Match 1
SRH Impact Subs: Shivang Kumar, Liam Livingston, David Payne, Smaran Ravichandran and Saqib Hussain.
RCB Impact Subs: Devdutt Padikkal, Jacob Bethel, Rasikh Dhar, Venkatesh Iyer and Kanishk Chauhan.
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