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Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Rajat Patidar led from the front and scored a mountain of runs in Qualifier 1 of IPL 2026. RCB’s mammoth 254 is now the highest score by any franchise in the IPL playoffs.
Royal Challengers captain Rajat Patidar lost the toss but was not unhappy with his team opting to bat first, as he correctly predicted that the team batting first would have the advantage of getting the ball well on the bat, scoring runs and taking an early lead in the game.
Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal once again gave RCB the start they needed until their dismissal. Patidar made a useful partnership with Krunal Pandya for the fourth wicket and took his team to a huge score.
Rajat Patidar leads the show in Dharamshala; Joins David Warner in elite IPL record
Rajat Patidar perhaps did not get the start he usually likes in the qualifier games, as he showed some responsibility towards the team. Shant Patidar started the hitting sequence from the second over of Kulwant Khejroliya.
By scoring 14 runs in 3 balls, he wreaked such havoc that there was no stopping him. He targeted the best in the business of GT, including Rashid Khan, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj and finally Prasidh Krishna, scoring 71 runs off the last 19 balls he faced in his innings.
RCB finished with a record score of 254/5, the highest ever in an IPL playoff game, surpassing GT’s former record of 233 against Mumbai Indians in IPL 2023. Patidar equaled David Warner’s decade-long record for most runs by a captain in the playoffs with his inning of 93 runs off just 33 balls.
He also broke the record score by an Indian captain in the IPL playoffs, after surpassing Shreyas Iyer’s 87* in the PBKS vs MI game in IPL 2025 Qualifier 2.
Rajat Patidar scored the third fastest half-century by a captain in the IPL playoffs
Rajat Patidar
RCB and Rajat Patidar broke big records in Qualifier 1 in Dharamshala
Also read: Rajat Patidar and Krunal Pandya created havoc, hit 28 runs on Kulwant Khejroliya.