In the final of the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026, defending champions Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) face Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. RCB made it two consecutive wins in the IPL as Virat Kohli finished the game brilliantly and became the third team to defend the title.
Rajat Patidar won the toss and chose to field first, as he played his last game with the same team. However, Shubman Gill made one change, replacing R Sai Kishore with Arshad Khan. The stadium was packed with fans who had come in large numbers to support their respective teams.
After being invited to bat first, Shubman Gill and Sai Sudarshan got off to a bright start but the GT skipper was out early on the score of 10 and Sai was soon out on the score of 12 as RCB bowlers Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar were on top. Jos Buttler played a relatively contrasting innings of 19 runs off 23 balls, while the Titans’ wickets continued to fall.
Virat Kohli special in the final
There was a controversial moment when Washington Sundar survived a catch by Jordan Cox, giving him not out after the ball landed and touched the ground. Sundar got a little support from Arshad, scoring 15 runs from 6 balls, as the former had a good innings on the night and brought up his half-century in 37 balls. He remained unbeaten in the innings and Titans scored 155/8 in 20 overs.
Venkatesh Iyer and Virat Kohli made a great start. The former player played an inning of 32 runs in 16 balls and put RCB in the driver’s seat. He was dismissed by Mohammed Siraj and soon Devdutt Padikkal went back without troubling the GT bowlers. Patidar also soon returned to the pavilion on the score of 15 and Krunal Pandya was out in the same over of Rashid Khan.
Kohli completed his half-century in 25 balls and kept RCB in the run chase as it was his fastest half-century. Tim David was out after scoring 24 runs in 17 balls, but Kohli remained unbeaten on 75 and finished the game brilliantly with a six.
Thought about this moment many times – Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli won the Player of the Match award for his extraordinary innings of 75 runs. He was excellent during the match and played with a possible hamstring injury. “It’s something you dream about. Thought about this moment so many times, winning the IPL and standing here. The kind of team you are in gives you the confidence to deal with any kind of situation,” he said.
“That’s the demand of the game today. You have these young players who are pushing you hard and asking you to be better. You need to score that extra 20-30 runs. To get those runs I had to change my mindset, not just the game. The target was to top the table. A lot of people asked who we would like to play in the game.”
“But we didn’t care about the jersey in front of us. We are a professional group. They probably wanted me out early but I was confident that even if I got out, there was enough depth in the team that I could do it. There was complete clarity and we both wanted to strike. We had small targets in mind.”
“Credit to Venkatesh too. Stepped in and did a beautiful job. I always say we don’t just have 7 home games, we have 14. GT is the home team here but probably 90% are RCB fans.”
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