(Image Credit: ANI)
The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 is all set to begin on March 28 with Royal Challengers Bengaluru taking on Sunrisers Hyderabad in Bengaluru in the opening fixture of the tournament. The official scheduled till April 12 was announced on Wednesday, March 11.
The defending champions RCB will play four matches in the first phase of the tournament. After taking on SRH, the side will host Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on April 5 and will then travel to Guwahati for their match against Rajasthan Royals on April 10.
RCB will then lock horns with Mumbai Indians who will be hosting them at home on April 12 which will be another double-heeder Sunday. A total of 20 matches will be played across 10 venues: Bengaluru, Mumbai, Guwahati, New Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. During this period, the tournament will feature four double-headers, with the afternoon matches beginning at 03:30 PM IST and the evening matches commencing at 07:30 PM IST.
RCB will play five home matches in Bengaluru and two in Raipur. The matches scheduled in Bengaluru are subject to clearance from the Expert Committee constituted by the Government of Karnataka. The committee will conduct a meeting and inspection of the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on March 13, 2026, during which a full-scale mock demonstration of match-day arrangements will be carried out to assess the stadium’s preparedness for hosting IPL matches.
The Rajat Patidar-side lifted the trophy after beating Punjab Kings in the final of the IPL 2025 and this was the first occasion when RCB’s men’s team won the title. RCB successfully defended a target of 191 against PBKS despite Shashank Singh’s heroics with the bat.
Virat Kohli will be back in action in the shortest format of the game. Kohli who has retired from T20Is will once again don the RCB jersey and the flamboyant batter has already started the preparations for the upcoming season of the cash-rich league. He had posted a video of himself on social media while sweating it out in the nets.
Kohli has been a vital cog in the wheel for RCB and has amassed 8661 runs in 267 matches. Kohli also holds the record for most runs in one single edition when he hammered 973 runs in 2016 season.
Interestingly, RCB will begin the quest in the IPL 2026 against the side they faced a decade back in the 2016 finale. Sunrisers Hyderabad locked horns with RCB in that final and the David Warner-led side emerged victorious on that occasion. That was the third final that RCB had lost in the IPL.
Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (c), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Romario Shepherd, Jitesh Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yash Dayal, Josh Hazlewood, Suyash Sharma, Abhinandan Singh, Jacob Bethell, Nuwan Thushara, Rasikh Dar, Swapnil Singh, Venkatesh Iyer, Jacob Duffy, Satvik Deswal, Mangesh Yadav, Jordan Cox, Vicky Otswal, Vihaan Malhotra, Kanishk Chouhan
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