🏏IPL 2026, Match 1 RCB v SRH at M Chinnaswamy stadium on 28/3/26 🏏

🏏IPL 2026, Match 1 RCB v SRH at M Chinnaswamy stadium, Bengaluru on 28/3/26 at 7:30PM IST 🏏

Vs

The IPL 2026 kicks off with Royal Challengers Bengaluru hosting Sunrisers Hyderabad at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on 28 March.

RCB start the 2026 IPL as reigning champions after their 2025 triumph over the Punjab Kings. The team will aim to kick off their campaign strongly, relying on stars like Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Tim David to defend their crown.

SRH will start IPL 2026 with a slightly understrength attack due to Pat Cummins’ absence. With Ishan Kishan at the helm, the team looks to put last season behind them and kick off positively.

Originally posted by: SoniRita

🏏IPL 2026, Match 1 RCB v SRH at M Chinnaswamy stadium, Bengaluru on 28/3/26 at 7:30PM IST 🏏

The IPL 2026 kicks off with Royal Challengers Bengaluru hosting Sunrisers Hyderabad at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on 28 March.

RCB start the 2026 IPL as reigning champions after their 2025 triumph over the Punjab Kings. The team will aim to kick off their campaign strongly, relying on stars like Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Tim David to defend their crown.

SRH will start IPL 2026 with a slightly understrength attack due to Pat Cummins’ absence. With Ishan Kishan at the helm, the team looks to put last season behind them and kick off positively.

Thanks for the tag Soni. But why is there two threads

RCB vs SRH Match Details

Match: Royal Challengers Bengaluru vs Sunrisers Hyderabad, Match 1

Date: 28 March 2026

Time: 7:30pm IST

Venue: M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru

RCB vs SRH Head-to-Head Record

Matches Played: 26

RCB: 11

SRH:13

Tied:01

Originally posted by: missFiesty_69

Thanks for the tag Soni. But why is there two threads

Pitch and conditions

The opening game of the IPL 2026 will be played on the centre pitch. This is historically a high-scoring venue, but with no cricket being played here in close to ten months, both teams might be wary of how the surface behaves. It has been unusually hot in Bengaluru over the last couple of weeks and the temperature is likely to hover around the mid to high 20 degree range. Flower said that he didn't expect a lot of dew to feature in the evening games.

Team news & likely XIIs

While the RCB top five looks fairly settled, their overseas combination is a head-scratcher. Salt looks a certain starter and so does Romario Shepherd. Bethell batted and bowled a lot over the last two days. He also had an extended fielding drill on the eve of the game and it appears he might start. Tim David was one of the stars for RCB last season, but he hasn't batted much in the last couple of days. Will RCB risk starting without David? The other player to look out for is Krunal Pandya, who has barely been seen much in RCB practice sessions.

RCB: 1 Virat Kohli, 2 Phil Salt, 3 Devdutt Padikkal, 4 Rajat Patidar (capt), 5 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 6 Jacob Bethell/Tim David, 7 Romario Shepherd, 8 Krunal Pandya, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Suyash Sharma, 11 Jacob Duffy, 12 Rasikh Salam

Virat Kohli gears up for IPL 2026•PTI

SRH head coach Vettori confirmed that Heinrich Klaasen will bat at No. 4, which means that SRH's top four will be Ishan Kishan, Abhishek, Head and Klaasen. The highly-rated Salil Arora could make his IPL debut, while Aniket Verma and Harsh Dubey also look set to play. The only toss-up in the SRH side could be between Eshan Malinga and Liam Livingstone. While Livingstone didn't bat much in the nets on the eve of the game, he had a long session the previous day. Malinga bowled on both days.

SRH: 1 Ishan Kishan (capt, wk), 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Travis Head, 4 Heinrich Klaasen, 5 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 6 Liam Livingstone/Eshan Malinga, 7 Salil Arora, 8 Aniket Verma, 9 Harsh Dubey, 10 Brydon Carse, 11 Harshal Patel, 12 Jaydev Unadkat

In the spotlight - Abhishek Sharma and Phil Salt

In two years, Phil Salt has been an IPL winner twice over - with Kolkata Knight Riders in 2024 and RCB in 2025. He played starring roles in both victories: was KKR's second-highest scorer (435 in 12 games) in 2024 and RCB's second-highest scorer in 2025 (403 in 13 games). Salt hasn't been in great form coming into the season, managing just 130 runs in eight innings at 16.25 at the T20 World Cup, but he has the backing of the team management, as Mo Bobat pointed out in the pre-tournament press conference.

Abhishek Sharma is back in his natural habitat, with a team that has turned his career around. He had a tough time at the T20 World Cup, with his half-century in the final the only saving grace. But at SRH, Abhishek is in a comfortable space along with Travis Head at the top. Travishek, as they are popularly known, had aggregated 511 runs in 12 innings last season, following up from a monstrous 2024 season, where Abhishek was a key figure in SRH's run to the final. No other SRH batter in the last four seasons has played more games or scored more runs than Abhishek's 1575 and with familiar faces around him, he will want to have another solid IPL season.

Stats and Trivia

• Since IPL 2024, SRH have the second-highest batting powerplay scoring rate: 10.54, marginally behind KKR's 10.55. RCB are not far behind on 9.83.
• The average first-innings score in completed T20Is at the Chinnaswamy over the last three seasons is 194.
• Kohli needs 29 runs to go past Shoaib Malik in the overall T20 run-scorer tally. He will go sixth on the list when he manages to do that
• Bhuvneshwar Kumar needs just two wickets to reach the 200 mark in the IPL. He is already second on the all-time wicket-taker's list in the tournament.

Quotes

"I was watching him do shuttles the other day, he looks light on his feet, very fit, very lean, very hungry. He's always been very hungry and determined and I think that mental and emotional space that he's in, where he's very comfortable with himself as a person, but he's also very hungry to drive himself as a professional sportsperson."

Andy Flower feels Virat Kohli is looking as good as ever

"The leadership that he exuded throughout that first season, particularly in the back half when he took over the wicketkeeping really brought energy to the group and set up our back half of the year and we were pretty successful in that period. So when Patty [Pat Cummins] was unfortunately out of the initial stage of the tournament, we obviously had some decisions to make and his experience with his state team in particular had been so impressive and then obviously he was in really good form. So between Abhishek and himself, we feel like we've got a really good leadership group to lead us this year.

Daniel Vettori on Ishan Kishan's captaincy skills

Key question

Jacob Bethell comes into IPL 2026 on the back of a spectacular century against India during the T20 World Cup at the Wankhede Stadium. Though RCB have some proven overseas performers, it will be hard for them to ignore Bethell's skills.