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Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026, Qualifier 1 has just concluded between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) taking on Gujarat Titans (GT) at the HPCA Cricket Stadium, Dharamshala. RCB became the first team to qualify for the final and will now await the winners of Qualifier 2 to play in the final. RCB defeated Shubman Gill’s team by 92 runs in the night.
After the defeat, Shubman Gill’s team will get another chance to play the winner of the eliminator between Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH)/Rajasthan Royals (RR). GT won the toss and elected to bowl first and they made one change, Kulwant Khejroliya came in for Arshad Khan and RCB brought back Jacob Duffy.
Rajat Patidar played captaincy innings
Invited to bat first, the defending champions made a brilliant start. Venkatesh Iyer played a short, impressive innings of 19 runs off 7 balls. Then, Virat Kohli and Devdutt took command of the game and made a partnership of 72 runs for the second wicket, but Virat was out on the score of 43 runs and Padikkal also returned to the pavilion on 30 runs.
After that, Rajat Patidar and Krunal Pandya hit back and made a 95-run partnership, in which Krunal scored 43 runs off 28 balls. The RCB captain played a big inning of 93 runs in 33 balls and helped the team score a huge score of 254/5 in 20 overs.
Shubman Gill failed to score runs
GT opener Sai Sudarshan, who came to chase the target, got off to a bright start but was out in a most unusual manner as his bat slipped from his hands and hit the stumps in the match and he was hit-wicketed. Soon, Titans captain Shubman Gill was dismissed by Bhuvneshwar Kumar for 2 runs. Jos Buttler was looking good and returned after scoring 29 runs.
Titans lost five wickets inside the power play which put them on the back foot. All the batsmen fell like nine pins in the night and they had no answer to the RCB bowling attack. Jacob Duffy was the best bowler, taking three wickets and bowling brilliantly in the power play. Rahul Tewatia was the leading run scorer for the team with 68 runs. He was out on the score of 162 runs.
We would like to forget-Shubman Gill
Gill said, “I mean, not really. I think we were playing quite well till the 12th, 13th over and I don’t think our fielding was up to par, a few catches were dropped and then our ground fielding was not good. (A lot of learning from this game for you too?) Yeah, definitely, you know, as you said, it’s one of those games that we would like to forget and start again in Mohali.”
“No, it’s definitely something we address in team meetings and practice sessions as well. But like I said, I don’t think it was one day, the intensity was there, but in pressure situations, we weren’t up to the mark. (Were you confident batting while chasing?) I mean, it’s all about getting a good start, you know.”
“If you get a good power play and on a ground like this we know the ball travels and the outfield is also very fast. So if you get a good start in the power play, the kind of wicket we had and the kind of ground we were playing on, any target could have been chased. (On Sudarshan’s dismissal) Yes, I mean, you don’t see that kind of dismissal very often. So it was very unfortunate.”
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