Defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru made it to the Final of the IPL 2026 as they beat Gujarat Titans in the Qualifier 1 of the season. Royal Challengers Bengaluru were batting first and got off to a brilliant start. They lost some wickets in the middle overs but Rajat Patidar was excellent smashing an unbeaten 93 to help Royal Challengers Bengaluru post a total of 254 at the end of the first innings. Gujarat Titans struggled in the chase and kept losing wickets and were bowled out for 162. Royal Challengers Bengaluru go to the Final of the season and will be hoping to defend their title while Gujarat Titans will have another chance in the Qualifier 2.
RCB 254/4 (Patidar 93, Holder 2/39) beat GT 162 (Tewatia 68, Duffy 3/39)
Bhuvneshwar Kumar | Purple Cap holder
I think a lot of credit goes to the men behind the scenes. (On how the experience of working with the support staff helped) It's everyone. I mean, yes, the experience we brought in, me and Hoff (Hazlewood) is one thing, but yes, when it comes to support staff, the small, small things they're bringing it, you might avoid that. But if experienced players like Hoff and I are accepted and you apply that rule, it works for us. And I think we've been doing that since the first match and it's helping us a lot. (If RCB tends to use more data) I think we can say that we are data informed. If there is something new the players are doing, okay, we definitely look into that and try to adapt. But we don't depend 100% on data. But yes it helps. (on his plans with the ball) That's like I said, part of the planning. If you look at that plan, anything short or fuller, it goes for a boundary. But yes, we make a lot of effort not to give any room and try to get LBW and bowled. So it's definitely part of our planning.
Shubman Gill | Gujarat Titans captain:
(Surprised with the way the pitch behaved?) I mean, not really. I think we were going pretty well up until the 12th, 13th over, and I don't think our fielding was at par, dropping a couple of catches, and then our ground fielding was not up to the mark. (There are plenty of learnings from this game for you as well?) Yeah, definitely, you know, this is, like you said, one of those games that we'd like to forget and start over in Mohali. (Is that [fielding errors] something that you'll address at training?) No, it's definitely something that we do address in the team meetings and also in the practice sessions. But like I said, I don't think it was our day, the intensity was right there, but under pressure situations, we were not up to the mark. (Were you confident walking out to bat with the chase?) 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 quick. So if you would have gotten off to a good start in the power play, any target with the kind of way the wicket was playing and the kind of ground that we were playing at, it could have been chaseable. (On Sudharsan's dismissal) Yeah, I mean, you don't see that kind of dismissal very often. So that was very unfortunate.
Rajat Patidar | RCB captain and Player of the Match:
It was a super game for us. The way everyone was striking, it was good for us. You have to show body language, that was there for every batter. Big stage, the way we dominated it was superb. Starting, I take 8-10 ball how the wicket is playing. After that, I am not worried about my wicket. Wicket wasn't that easy to get under the ball and hit sixes. We had to get their top three out in the powerplay
