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The TATA Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026, Qualifier 1 has just ended between the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), who took on the Gujarat Titans (GT) at the HPCA Cricket Stadium, Dharamsala. RCB became the first team to qualify for the final and will now wait for the winners of Qualifier 2 to play in the final. RCB beat Shubman Gill’s team by 92 runs on the night.
After the loss, the Shubman Gill side will get another chance to play the winner of the Eliminator between the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH)/Rajasthan Royals (RR). GT won the toss and opted to bowl first, and they made one change, Kulwant Khejroliya came in for Arshad Khan, and RCB brought back Jacob Duffy.
Rajat Patidar played a captain’s knock
The defending champions were off to a blazing start after being asked to bat first. Venkatesh Iyer played a small, impactful knock of 19 runs off 7 deliveries. Then, Virat Kohli and Devdutt took charge in the game and stitched a partnership of 72 runs for the second wicket, but the former was dismissed on the score of 43 runs, and Padikkal also went back for 30.
After that, Rajat Patidar and Krunal Pandya counterattacked and built a 95-run partnership, with the latter scoring 43 runs off 28 deliveries. The RCB skipper played a big knock, 93 runs off 33 balls, and helped the team post a massive score of 254/5 in their 20 overs.
Shubman Gill failed to score runs
Coming out to chase, GT opener Sai Sudharsan was off to a breezy start, but he was dismissed most unusually as he was hit-wicket in the match after his bat slipped from his hand and hit the stumps. Soon, Titans captain Shubman Gill was castled by Bhuvneshwar Kumar on 2 runs. Jos Buttler, who looked good, was back scoring 29 runs.
The Titans lost five wickets inside the power play leaning them on the back foot. All batters fell like nine pins on the night and did not have any answer to the RCB bowling attack. Jacob Duffy was the pick of the bowlers, picking three wickets and bowling brilliantly in the power play. Rahul Tewatia was the leading run scorer for the side, scoring 68 runs. They were bowled out for the score of 162 runs.
We would like to forget- Shubman Gill
Gill said, “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.”
“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 a 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.”
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