He Sealed It With A Six. Virat Kohli. 75 Not Out. Back-To-Back IPL Titles. RCB Are Champions Of The World Again.

 

When the moment came, it came the way Virat Kohli moments always do — with a six.

The ball from Washington Sundar was full, inviting, slightly too straight. Kohli was on 70. RCB needed four more runs to win. He stepped across his stumps, picked up the line early, and launched it over the mid-wicket boundary with a swing that had no doubts in it anywhere. The ball cleared the rope by ten metres. The Narendra Modi Stadium — all 132,000 people of it, the largest cricket ground in the world, packed with Gujarat Titans supporters who had come hoping to witness a title on their home ground — fell silent for just a moment before the RCB fans scattered across the stands erupted.

Back-to-back IPL titles. Only the third team in the tournament's nineteen-year history to defend their crown, after Chennai Super Kings in 2010 and 2011, and Mumbai Indians in 2019 and 2020. And at the centre of it — as he has been at the centre of everything good that has happened to Royal Challengers Bengaluru this season — Virat Kohli. 75 not out. 42 balls. Nine fours and three sixes. His fastest ever IPL half century, brought up in 25 balls. Player of the Match. Player of the Final. The man who refused to let it slip.

RCB won by five wickets with 12 balls to spare. Gujarat Titans had posted 155 for 8 — a total that felt below par on the Ahmedabad surface, despite the quality of RCB's bowling — and Kohli chased it down almost single-handedly, keeping his composure through four quick wickets in the middle of the chase to ensure the title never genuinely felt in danger. The second star is on the badge. The dynasty, if one word can describe two consecutive titles, has begun.

He Was 22 Off 14. Then He Hit 71 Off 19. Rajat Patidar's Innings Against GT Was The Most Extraordinary Thing IPL 2026 Has Produced.

There is a moment in every great innings when the match stops being a contest and becomes something else entirely. When the bowlers are still trying, still running in, still going through their plans — but everyone watching knows it is over. The batter has simply decided.

That moment came at HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala on Monday night when Rajat Patidar was 22 off 14 balls. Scratchy. Cautious. Not himself. Kagiso Rabada had already beaten his outside edge twice. Jason Holder had bowled him a delivery that he had mistimed straight to cover — and then watched it land six inches short of the fielder's hands, dropping safely to the turf for a single.

Then something shifted.

He launched Rashid Khan — the best spinner in the IPL, a bowler who had been among the tournament's top wicket-takers all season — over extra cover on the full. Not over mid-wicket. Not over long-on. Over extra cover, off a good-length ball, one-handed at the point of contact. It was the shot of a batter who had decided the match was over. And from that moment, it was.

In the next 19 balls, Rajat Patidar scored 71 runs. He finished on 93 not out off 33 deliveries. Strike rate 281.81 — the highest ever for a captain in a fifty-plus innings in IPL history. Nine sixes. Six fours. One dot ball. And at the end of it, Virat Kohli — standing at the non-striker's end, watching his captain dismantle the best bowling attack in the competition — was visibly slack-jawed.

RCB posted 254 for 5. The highest total in IPL playoff history. GT were bowled out for 162 in reply. RCB won by 92 runs. And on Sunday, May 31, at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, they will play Gujarat Titans in the IPL 2026 final — their second consecutive final, defending the title they won last year.

Three Teams Are In. One Spot Is Left. And Five Franchises Are About To Tear Each Other Apart For It.

 

Three down. One to go.

When Ishan Kishan pulled Anshul Kamboj through square leg for the boundary that sealed Sunrisers Hyderabad's five-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings at Chepauk on Monday night, two things happened at once. SRH booked their playoff spot. And Gujarat Titans — sitting in a hotel room somewhere, watching the match — quietly qualified too, without playing a single ball.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Sunrisers Hyderabad. Gujarat Titans. Three confirmed. One spot remaining.

And five teams — Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals, Punjab Kings, Delhi Capitals, and Kolkata Knight Riders — are all mathematically alive and all looking at the same narrow door, knowing only one of them is going to fit through it.

This is what the final week of IPL 2026 looks like. It is not pretty. It is not clean. It is five franchises with different problems, different remaining fixtures, and different levels of hope — and all of them convinced, in some corner of their dressing room, that this is the week they turn it around.

Some of them are right. Most of them are wrong. Let us go through each one.

Cricket Today: GT's 1-Run Thriller, Suryavanshi Stuns Bumrah & IPL Table

 

IPL 2026 has delivered everything in the last 72 hours — a 1-run thriller at Arun Jaitley Stadium, a 15-year-old hitting Jasprit Bumrah for six on the very first ball faced, a rain washout at Eden Gardens, and a points table that is wide open with 14 matches played.

April 9, 2026 — here is the complete IPL 2026 roundup you need.

Cricket Today — April 1, 2026: Amelia Kerr's World Record 179*, Cooper Connolly's Debut Heroics, Fakhar Zaman Banned & LSG vs DC Tonight

 One world record. One debut for the ages. One maximum ban. And the biggest revenge match in IPL tonight. April 1, 2026 — and cricket is very much not joking.

From Wellington to Mullanpur, from Lahore to Lucknow — the last 24 hours have produced some of the most extraordinary cricket of 2026. Here is everything you need to know from the world of cricket today — in one place.

Cricket Today — March 31, 2026: Vaibhav's Record Fifty, Naseem Shah's Rs 2 Crore Fine, Fakhar Zaman Ball Tampering & Tonight's Fixtures

 Two leagues. Three controversies. One teenage superstar. Cricket is already burning in 2026.

It is only March 31 — and cricket has already given us a record-breaking fifty from a 15-year-old, the biggest fine in Pakistan cricket history, a ball-tampering scandal that could end in a ban, and two mouth-watering fixtures tonight. Here is everything you need to know from the world of cricket today — in one place.