5 min readMay 27, 2026 07:55 PM IST
Royal Challengers Bengaluru won Qualifier 1 by 92 runs and posted 254 for 5 – the highest total in IPL playoff history. But for long stretches of the evening in Dharamsala, this was anything but one-sided.
Gujarat Titans won the toss and chose to field. The logic was sound. As batting coach Matthew Hayden revealed on the sidelines, they believed the pitch – devoid of grass, two-paced, with developing cracks – would suit batsmen once the temperature dropped. With their bowling line-up, the merit of bowling first was clear. What was revealing at the toss was that RCB had wanted to chase for identical reasons. Both captains, it turned out, had read the pitch the same way and arrived at the same conclusion. Only one of them got to act on it.
It was a pitch where totals above 200 had been chased down easily in Dharamsala this season. RCB understood this. Their intent from ball one was to post something that would be beyond Gujarat’s reach – a target that would test a side known to rely heavily on its top three and not given to taking risks with the bat.
RCB’s powerplay unsettled
Gujarat’s plan immediately. Before the game there had been temptation within the camp to open with Phil Salt, but they stuck with Venkatesh Iyer – a left-hander against Rabada and Siraj, a pair built to trouble right-handers with movement across the stumps. Iyer lasted just seven deliveries but made 19 of them, ramps and charges down the pitch converting Test-match lines into driveable lengths. Virat Kohli pressed on. Devdutt Padikkal made 30 off 19. Shubman Gill was forced to split his best bowling pair earlier than intended. It was RCB’s best powerplay of the season.
Gujarat hit back hard. Jason Holder bowled four overs unchanged between overs seven and ten, conceding just 23 runs and taking the wickets of both Kohli and Padikkal. Kohli’s dismissal was familiar – a short ball on the fifth-stump channel with pace taken off, the ball hitting a crack and keeping low, an inside edge back onto the stumps.
Almost a replica of how Holder had dismissed him in Bengaluru earlier in the season. At the other end, Rashid Khan was doing what he does in the middle overs – cramping batsmen for room, cutting off angles, making scoring feel harder than the scorecard suggested. With the run rate climbing and two set batsmen gone, Gujarat were back in the game – and for a significant period, ahead of it. The total that had looked imposing was starting to feel reachable. The defending champions were outsmarting Gujarat, but not yet overpowering them.
Gill sensed the moment and took Rashid off, switching to his pacers. As Prasidh Krishna came on, Rajat Patidar and Krunal Pandya began taking their chances, the run rate demanding boldness. RCB were pushing back. Gujarat were responding. It was still a contest. For a side that prides itself on keeping plans simple, Gujarat had an uncharacteristic habit on the night of committing costly mistakes.
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The decision to include Khejroliya – playing his first game of the season in a knockout match – was the first. Then he dropped Patidar on 15 and bowled the most expensive over of the night. Twenty-eight runs. From that moment, the contest was over.
Patidar finished with 93 off 33 balls, the fastest innings of 90 or more in IPL history. Gujarat’s limitations – their brittle middle order, their heavy dependence on the top three – were exposed in the most brutal fashion once the momentum shifted. In their chase, the top-heavy structure that had carried them through fourteen league matches unravelled almost immediately. Gill fell for 2, Sudharsan for 14, Buttler for 29 – three wickets inside the powerplay, the platform they had built their entire season on gone before the seventh over. What followed was inevitable. Without the top order, Gujarat’s middle had no template to follow and no firepower to compensate. They were bowled out for 162.
“The intent shown by the boys right from the start was outstanding,” Patidar said. “It started with Venky, Virat and Devdutt, and throughout the innings we maintained our tempo. In games like these, teams sometimes take the back foot. We ensured we kept pushing forward.”
RCB are in the final. Gujarat go into Qualifier 2 knowing they kept themselves in this game longer than the margin suggests. One catch, one over, and the evening became something else entirely.
