IPL 2026: Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s former captain Virat Kohli has asked his teammates to buckle up for a tough IPL season in a video of a practice session, posted by the franchise on Friday. Kohli, who is the most experienced player in the squad, unleashed a speech full of passion, asking his teammates to give 120 per cent in the next few weeks to defend the title.
After facing an IPL drought for the first 17 years, RCB finally broke the deadlock by clinching the title in IPL 2025. RCB, despite possessing some of the most incredible players in their squad over the years, made the finals twice in their history before finally winning it last year.
Under the captaincy of Rajat Patidar, RCB defeated the finalists, PBKS (Punjab Kings), to lift the trophy.
“We worked really hard over the last two to three seasons to achieve what we did last year, and it’s only going to get tougher because the other teams are going to come hard at us,” Kohli said.
“We don’t waste these days. We stay ahead. So, switch on now. Let’s not waste even a minute of every session we are a part of. We must give our 120% for these two and a half months. I can see from everyone’s faces that we are excited enough to be challengers,” he added.
Virat Kohli Chasing Glory
Kohli was at his usual best as he amassed 657 runs in 15 innings at a staggering average of 54.75 and a strike rate of 144.71, with eight fifties to his name, finishing as the team’s leading run-getter and third-highest run-getter overall.
Currently at 8,661 runs in 267 matches with eight centuries and 63 fifties, Kohli seeks to become the first player to reach the 9,000 run mark in IPL history.
Having made 9,085 runs in 282 matches for RCB across IPL and now-defunct Champions League T20, the 36-year-old is one extraordinary season away from becoming the first-ever player to score 10,000 runs for a single IPL team in all of T20 cricket.
RCB will face SRH in IPL 2026’s first match at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on March 28.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Full Squad: Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar, 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, Mangesh Yadav, Satvik Deswal, Jordan Cox, Vicky Ostwal, Vihaan Malhotra, Kanishk Chouhan.
With inputs from agency
