Royal Challengers Bangalore started their IPL 2026 campaign with an emphatic win by defeating Sunrisers Hyderabad by 6 wickets at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Chasing 202, RCB made it look easy and finished the game in just 15.4 overs with 26 balls remaining. Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal took the lead in the key run chase.
matching summary
RCB captain Rajat Patidar won the toss and decided to bowl first. The decision soon bore fruit as debutant fast bowler Jacob Duffy shocked SRH by taking a quick wicket.
Duffy removed Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head and Nitish Kumar Reddy, leaving SRH struggling at 29/3 in the powerplay.
SRH then made a comeback through stand-in captain Ishan Kishan. He played a fearless inning of 80 runs in 38 balls with the help of eight fours and five sixes.
Kishan got good support from Heinrich Klaasen, who scored 31 runs in 22 balls. The pair added 97 runs for the fourth wicket and took the innings forward.
Aniket Verma gave a strong finish to SRH in the final overs. He scored 43 runs in just 18 balls and took the total score to 201/9.
For RCB, Jacob Duffy impressed with 3/22, while Romario Shepherd also took three wickets.
RCB, chasing the target, got a small start when Jaydev Unadkat dismissed Phil Salt early. But that was the only moment when SRH looked in control.
After this Devdutt Padikkal took over the innings and played a brilliant inning of 61 runs in 26 balls. They attacked from the beginning and made a partnership of 101 runs which changed the course of the game.
Virat Kohli chased the target brilliantly by playing an unbeaten inning of 69 runs in 38 balls. During his innings, he became the first player to reach 4,000 IPL runs while chasing the target.
RCB faltered a bit when David Payne dismissed Rajat Patidar and Jitesh Sharma in the same over. But Kohli remained calm and in control.
He finished the match brilliantly by hitting 6, 4, 4 and 4 off Harshal Patel in the 16th over and secured a comfortable win.
RCB finished at 203/4, sending a strong message at the start of the season.
