Defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru were excellent in the previous edition and dominated the tournament with both bat and ball. But despite winning the championship, there are still a few areas of concern when it comes to Royal Challengers Bengaluru leading up to the IPL 2026. With the brand new season of the IPL set to begin in a few weeks, RCB will need to sort out their middle order combinations. This is a crucial phase of the innings and in the previous edition they did not get much from their middle order batters.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru have a very top order and it was quite evident in the last season where Phil Salt and Virat Kohli put up plenty of match winning partnerships for the team. Devdutt Padikkal did a fine job at Number three. They had excellent finishers with Tim David and Romario Shepherd in the side. But the key concerning area was the middle order batting.
Rajat Patidar, also the captain of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru is the glue of the middle order. His failure last season highlighted plenty of flaws. Rajat Patidar batted at Number 4 but the other middle order batters kept rotating with Krunal Pandya and Jitesh Sharma also batting at key positions. RCB did not have a great middle order and the loss of form to Rajat Patidar made the middle order very vulnerable but due to excellent top order batters and finishers they managed to still win games with their batting.
They have identified this area and the role of Devdutt Padikkal at three will also be crucial. If he starts slow or fails then that will put more pressure on Patidar and co to help the team. Also the form of Rajat Patidar is the absolute key. An in-form Rajat Patidar will make the RCB middle order batting stronger than it actually is. So RCB will be hoping to plug a few gaps and try out a few different combinations in the middle with even Jacob Bethell as an option. The IPL begins on 28th March with RCB taking on SRH in the opening match.
