Kohli back at the Kotla, Rahul against his old club: DC and RCB meet in the IPL 2026 playoff race
Delhi Capitals host Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Monday night, and the small print of this fixture is doing all the work. Virat Kohli walks back out at his hometown ground, the place he grew up playing on, in the colours of the side he has spent half a career trying to beat them with. KL Rahul, on the other side, faces RCB. The franchise that drafted him in 2013, sold him to Punjab in 2018, and has watched him score more runs against them than against anyone else.
The cricket itself matters too. RCB are second in the IPL 2026 table on ten points with a game in hand on the chasers. Delhi are seventh, three wins from seven, and coming off a six-wicket loss to Punjab in which they posted 264 and still found a way to lose.
Rahul, RCB, and the numbers
Rahul has scored 789 runs against RCB since leaving the franchise, more than against any other side, and his average of 69.91 against them across that period is the best he has against any team. His 152 not out off 67 balls against Punjab last week was the highest individual T20 score by an Indian batter and still ended in defeat. He arrives in Delhi at the top of his form and with a chip on his shoulder.
The Arun Jaitley pitch is an old friend. Rahul knows this ground well, and his record at Kotla and the renamed Jaitley reads consistently better than at any other Indian venue. RCB played a T20I against Delhi here last season that Kohli won with a controlled chase. The same surface will sit under the lights tonight.
Kohli’s home ground
Kohli has seven IPL fifties at this venue and is in the form of his life this season. His strike rate of 163.18 is the highest he has carried into any IPL campaign and his 81 against Gujarat last week was the knock that put RCB through to second on the table. The hometown angle is the cliche but the numbers behind it are genuine: among the active IPL batters, only Rahul has scored more runs in Delhi as a visiting player than Kohli has scored as the local.
RCB’s bowling is the unit that has actually carried them through April. Josh Hazlewood has been the most economical IPL pacer over the last fortnight, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar at the death has been a different bowler from the one who looked finished in 2024. The unfussy leg-spin of Suyash Sharma is the kind of option that can break a Delhi top order built around Pathum Nissanka and Nitish Rana.
Pitch, weather, and the playoff race
Delhi at the end of April is hot. Monday’s forecast pushes 42 degrees and the surface, a flat, hard, black-soil pitch, is one of the better batting surfaces on the IPL circuit. Recent matches at the venue have averaged scores around 200, and the short square boundaries reward batters who pick their gaps over the in-field. There is dew here at this time of year, which usually means winning the toss and bowling first.
The playoff race is the broader context. Punjab and RCB look set for the top two, Hyderabad and Rajasthan are in the conversation for the next two, and Gujarat, CSK and Delhi are still alive on the maths but running short on games. Delhi have six fixtures left after this one and a defeat tonight makes the climb steeper. Royal Challengers Bengaluru are the side everyone is now chasing.
Cricket Updates
