🏏IPL 2026: Delhi Capitals vs Royal Challengers, 39th Match, Delhi🏏

🏏IPL 2026: Delhi Capitals vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru, 39th Match, Delhi🏏

Kohli meets DC, Rahul meets RCB as the playoff race heats up!! Both batters love facing their hometown teams; who will come out on top? Let's see...

RCB, with five wins in seven games, are comfortably second on the points table, with a game in hand compared to the two other teams on 10 points. DC, though, have a four-point gap to bridge with the top four, and will be keen on staying in the mix for the playoffs spots, having lost four of their last five games.

Lungi Ngidi has been DC's best seamer this season, but he is in doubt after taking a blow to his head while attempting a catch against PBKS. Ngidi had to be stretchered off the ground and was taken to a hospital. An hour after the incident, the franchise said he was "stable" and due to be discharged shortly, but he may not be ready to play the game against RCB, with just a day's gap between the two games. Kyle Jamieson and Dushmantha Chameera are overseas quicks who could come in for Ngidi, while allrounder Madhav Tiwari is an Indian option.

RCB opener Phil Salt missed their last game, against Gujarat Titans, with injury and their batting coach Dinesh Karthik confirmed that he is still unavailable. That means Jacob Bethell should get another game at the top and RCB are likely to stay unchanged.

Can a one-day turnaround help Delhi Capitals bounce back from the stinging defeat to Punjab Kings, who chased down a world-record 265 with more than an over to spare? In the unforgiving world of the IPL, it has to. For Delhi, there's neither time nor the luxury to dwell on the what ifs anyway, especially with second-placed Royal Challengers Bengaluru already in town.

At the halfway mark, DC have more losses against their name than wins. All four defeats have come in the last-five outings - a slump that folllwed yet another promising start to their IPL 2026 campaign. Back at home, against the table toppers PBKS, Delhi piled on a mammoth score only for the bowling and fielding to collectively let them down in a game where the batters finally stepped up.

Lungi Ngidi's freak injury also compromised their attack on Saturday. Now with Mitchell Starc unavailable until the start of next month, the concerns in an already misfiring pace department have compounded. Hurt and vulnerable as they may be, Delhi can't afford more slip-ups heading into the business half of the season.

For RCB, the timing couldn't be better to settle scores from the reverse fixture while tightening their grip on a top-two finish. Virat Kohli remains firmly in the Orange Cap conversation, but this RCB unit has thrived on collective batting contributions. Devdutt Padikkal's consistency and Rajat Patidar's aggressive middle-order strokeplay have added more stability and firepower, making their line-up far more shock-proof.

Where RCB may hold a decisive advantage, though, is with the ball. Spearheaded by the miserly Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and further strengthened by the return of Josh Hazlewood, their attack looks better equipped to exploit Delhi's batting frailties. In conditions that promise a bucketload of runs, discipline with the ball and execution under pressure is where the visitors might potentially run away with the contest in Virat Kohli's Delhi.

When: Monday, April 27 at 7:30 PM IST

Where: Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi

What to expect: A run-fest yet again. The average first innings total in Delhi, since IPL 2023, is 200.

Head-to-head: RCB hold a clear advantage, leading 20-13 (one no-result) across 34 encounters. However, since 2023, the rivalry has been evenly poised, with both teams winning three games each. At the Kotla, Delhi have managed just four wins against RCB, who have triumphed seven times at the venue.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru

Injuries & Availability: Phil Salt has been ruled out of the Delhi fixture, but Rasikh Dar appeared fit and sharp during training on match-eve.

Tactics & Matchups: In his maiden IPL stint, Pathum Nissanka has blown hot and cold, more often than not losing his wicket inside the Powerplay. On Monday, he faces Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who has dismissed him three times in four T20 meetings, conceding just 22 runs off 24 balls - a chink RCB will look to exploit early. Bhuvneshwar has also dismissed KL Rahul and Nitish Rana twice each in all T20s.

Probable XII: Jacob Bethell, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (C), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Romario Shepherd, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rasikh Salim Dar, Josh Hazlewood, Suyash Sharma

Delhi Capitals

Injuries & Availability: Lungi Ngidi has returned to the team hotel after being cleared of any serious injury, but he is unlikely to feature in the immediate future. Among the reserves, Kyle Jamieson and Dushmantha Chameera remain the like-for-like replacement options.

Tactics & Matchups: Jitesh Sharma has struggled against Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel, scoring just 32 and 15 runs respectively at strike rates of 110.34 and 78.94. Between them, the DC spin duo has dismissed the wicketkeeper four times in T20s, setting up an intriguing middle-overs contest.

Probable XII: Pathum Nissanka, KL Rahul (wk), Nitish Rana, Sameer Rizvi, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel (C), Kyle Jamieson/Dushmantha Chameera, Kuldeep Yadav, Mukesh Kumar, T Natarajan, Auqib Nabi

Did you know?

- Virat Kohli has been dismissed for a single-digit score only once across 21 innings in IPL run-chases.

- Since 2023, RCB have a win record of 91.67% when Kohli scores a fifty and only 33.33% when he doesn't.

- KL Rahul has 839 runs against RCB, striking a touch above 145 and at an impressive average of 69.91 in 18 innings.

What they said:

"Krunal Pandya is a player that this game is going to remember for a long time. He's doing something that has not been done before, pushing the boundaries of what finger-spinner means. He's bowling deliveries that people really couldn't fathom a few years ago and he's becoming a master at it and he's using it very cleverly when the situation demands and he's using that as a strength of his to put pressure back on the person that he's bowling against. It's actually quite interesting to see how he goes about it mentally as well. He's not someone who's just doing it because it looks cool. He knows that given the moment when he does want to use it, it does create a doubt in the batter and a lot of the times delivers the result that he wants out of that ball." - Dinesh Karthik, RCB batting coach, on Krunal Pandya's success

Pathum Nissanka and Virat Kohli

DC signed up Pathum Nissanka in the auction after an uptick in performances in T20s since the start of 2025. From the start of 2025 to the start of IPL 2026, Nissanka averaged 34.18 and was striking at 158.02 in all T20s. His stunning century against Australia in the T20 World Cup, a month before the IPL, would have given DC confidence that they had found a perfect partner for Rahul at the top of the order. However, while Nissanka has got off to quick starts in IPL 2026 - reflected in his strike rate of 150 in the competition - he has been unable to convert them. He's made just 147 runs in seven games, and DC will want him to start posting big scores soon, or they may look at alternate options like Abishek Porel, Prithvi Shaw or even Rehan Ahmed at the top.

It's another season of the IPL and Virat Kohli is Virat Kohli-ing again. He's among the top run-scorers, picking up the Orange Cap a couple of times even as its changed hands (or heads) with great frequency. His strike rate of 163.18 is his best in any IPL season and he is coming into this game on the back of a match-winning 81 against GT. And much like Rahul, Kohli loves his hometown as well, and has seven IPL fifties in Delhi. He had steered RCB to victory in a tricky chase last season at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, and DC will be vary of the threat the RCB maestro poses.