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Gujarat Titans entered the final of IPL 2026 after an impressive performance in the second qualifier against Rajasthan Royals. However, now they had to face Royal Challengers Bangalore, the defending champions of the last season of IPL.
Royal Challengers Bangalore have played like absolute champions this season and have been on top of the table throughout the end of this tournament. The best feature of Royal Challengers has been that they never looked dependent on one or two of their cricketers, rather every player of the team stood up whenever the team needed it.
With Chennai Super Kings in 2010 and 2011 and Mumbai Indians in 2019 and 2020 being the only two teams to win the title in consecutive seasons, the Royal Challengers have now become the third team to achieve this mammoth IPL feat.
Shubman Gill and Sai Sudarshan end IPL 2026 with record-breaking partnership figures
Coming to the Narendra Modi Stadium, a ground where Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill has enjoyed so much success not only for his franchise but also for the Indian team, there were a lot of expectations from the captain. He also played a brilliant innings in the last game, which showed his good form.
However, in this match, Shubman Gill was out early and his batting partner Sai Sudarshan was also out, who followed him into the dugout in the very next over. However, Sudarshan and Shubman Gill finished the season with 700+ runs this season with nine and eight fifty-plus scores respectively, along with a century to their name.
Together, these two have added 908 runs in the opening partnership for Gujarat Titans, which despite their poor middle order, did not allow the Titans to feel inadequacy with the bat. With 900+ run partnerships in a season, the highest number of half-centuries and century partnerships in IPL history, the Titans openers have set a new universe of success in the IPL this season.
RCB bowlers dominated throughout GT’s innings; batsmen chase it easily
RCB bowlers never once made Rajat Patidar feel that they had wronged him by winning the toss and electing to bowl first in the IPL 2026 final. The last time the Challengers won the title, they batted first and defended the score against Punjab Kings.
Not only Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar took important wickets early on, but also Rasikh Salaam, who kept taking wickets in almost every over that the captain handed the ball to. Gujarat could not make a single partnership and could score only 155 runs in its innings.
Just when the Gujarat Titans bowlers might have dreamed of getting their team back into the game, Virat Kohli and Venkatesh Iyer stood in their way with a brilliant start to their innings. Kohli was very aggressive this time as he fearlessly attacked Rabada while Venky Iyer gave him a good start from the other end.
Despite a magical first over from Afghanistan spin wizard Rashid Khan, Kohli showed why he is called the Chasemaster as he led RCB to their second title in the IPL with an unbeaten inning of 75 runs. He was crowned Player of the Match and has now overtaken former MI captain Rohit Sharma.
“Very happy”: Shubman Gill happy despite first defeat in IPL final as GT captain
Losing captain Shubman Gill has a lot of emotions in his mind as he is usually the one who misses out on glory by such a narrow margin, and the same happened with Shubman Gill in this season of IPL, where his team finished as the runner-up. Gill reflected on some of the key flaws in the match and said that the biggest cause for concern was GT missing out by a few runs.
“If we had got closer to 180-190, it would have been a good match. There was some movement for the fast bowlers in the first three-four overs and after losing a few early wickets we lost the momentum. We gave away 15-20 runs in the powerplay. I think we were one of the best bowling teams in the tournament,” said Shubman Gill.
Gill said of his team’s performance in the season, “After losing the first few games, we came back. Very happy. We couldn’t get over the line, but even if we had won the trophy there would have been always areas to improve.”
Also Read: Watch: Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma go crazy after winning the title six times in IPL 2026 final