Virat Kohli once again proved why he is still one of the biggest match-winners of the IPL. Despite battling knee pain and illness, Virat Kohli beautifully led the chase for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in their IPL 2026 clash against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on April 15.
Virat Kohli made the chase easy by playing a brilliant inning of 49 runs in 34 balls at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. He picked the right moments to attack, which helped RCB finish the match against LSG with five wickets in 15.1 overs.
Despite injury, Virat Kohli leads RCB to easy win over LSG
Apart from Virat Kohli, captain Rajat Patidar (27 runs on 13 balls) and Jitesh Sharma (23 runs on 9 balls) also played quick innings to lead RCB to victory. With this win, RCB has now reached the top of the IPL 2026 points table with 8 points. They have won four out of their five matches.
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RCB bowlers were also excellent throughout the innings. Rasikh Salam Dar performed brilliantly with the ball and broke the backbone of LSG’s batting by taking 4 wickets.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar supported them well with 3 wickets, while Krunal Pandya got two wickets and Josh Hazlewood kept the pressure on LSG with a brilliant spell of 1/20 in his four overs.
Kohli lauds RCB’s smart approach and teamwork
After the match, RCB shared a video of the teams’ celebration and dressing room moments on their social media handles. In that clip, Kohli said that he is happy with the team’s performance and praised the way RCB chased the modest target against LSG.
The former captain believes that the defending champions played smart cricket and even after losing Phil Salt early, Rajat, Jitesh and other players remained positive and kept attacking, preventing the Lucknow bowlers from getting back into the match.
“Guys, another good win for us. I think we were very professional at the back, a conscious effort to try to take the game away from the opposition right from the start. In those little moments of pressure, we picked the right shots, put the pressure back on the opposition and we were ahead of the game all the time,” Virat Kohli said in the video.
Kohli teases Romario Shepherd and Krunal Pandya; Hopefully RCB will continue the momentum
However, the RCB icon was not happy with the short batting collapse against LSG though as he teased Romario Shepherd (14* off 8 balls) to finally get some time in the middle. He also joked that Krunal Pandya missed batting against LSG but hopefully will see him in the next game.
The former Indian captain further added, “From a personal point of view and also from a batting group point of view, I think I would have liked to see us go down by 2 or 3. I don’t like to see a collapse, but bloody good performance, and it’s good to see Sheppey finally get some time and finish the game. KP is the only one left now, so everyone gets some game time, and then we’ll probably see the celebrations next time.”
When 𝗩𝗶𝗿𝗮𝘁 𝗞𝗼𝗵𝗹𝗶 speaks in the post-match dressing room chat!
Clinical win, summed up clinically by Virat and Duffy last night. #playbold #নমমRCB #IPL2026 #rcbvlsg pic.twitter.com/IHruIV1t1y
– Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) 16 April 2026
“I don’t like to see the collapse” Just like us, Kohli still misses that old RCB pic.twitter.com/d05i71QJwJ
– Sir Jacob Bethell Era (@bet_hell) 16 April 2026
Overall, Kohli was satisfied with the performance and said that RCB is moving in the right direction with good teamwork and confidence and now they have to maintain it further in the tournament. He said, “Very good, very professional; we will keep moving forward.”
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