RCB vs SRH Live Score, IPL 2026 Opening Match: RCB Opt to Bowl; Kohli & Salt Ready for Action! Defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) have won the toss and elected to bowl first in the opening match of IPL 2026 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
The match is set to begin shortly at 7:30 PM IST.
Match Status: Toss Update RCB vs SRH Live Score,
- Toss: Rajat Patidar (RCB) won the toss and chose to bowl.
- Reasoning: Patidar cited the venue’s chasing history and the expected dew factor as the primary reasons for fielding first.
- SRH Stance: Stand-in skipper Ishan Kishan mentioned he would have also preferred to bowl first but is confident in his team’s batting firepower to set a massive total.
Confirmed Playing XIs
| Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) | Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) |
| Virat Kohli | Abhishek Sharma |
| Phil Salt | Travis Head |
| Rajat Patidar (C) | Ishan Kishan (C/WK) |
| Jitesh Sharma (WK) | Heinrich Klaasen |
| Tim David | Aniket Verma |
| Romario Shepherd | Nitish Kumar Reddy |
| Krunal Pandya | Salil Arora |
| Bhuvneshwar Kumar | Harsh Dubey |
| Abhinandan Singh | Eshan Malinga |
| Jacob Duffy | Harshal Patel |
| Suyash Sharma | Jaydev Unadkat |
Impact Players: RCB vs SRH Live Score,
- RCB: Devdutt Padikkal, Jacob Bethell, Rasikh Salam, Kanishk Chouhan, Venkatesh Iyer.
- SRH: Shivang Kumar, Liam Livingstone, David Payne, R Smaran, Sakib Hussain.
Key Storylines
- New Leadership: This marks the IPL captaincy debut for Ishan Kishan, who is leading SRH in the absence of Pat Cummins (injured).
- Defending the Crown: RCB begins their title defense under Rajat Patidar, following their historic 2025 victory.
- Tribute: The RCB squad is training in No. 11 jerseys today to honor the 11 victims of a stampede during last year’s trophy celebrations.
- Milestones: Bhuvneshwar Kumar is just 2 wickets away from becoming the second bowler ever to reach 200 IPL wickets.