RCB chase a second straight title as Gujarat sweat on Siraj for the IPL 2026 final
It comes down to this. Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Gujarat Titans meet at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday night for the IPL 2026 title, five days after RCB took the first one apart in Qualifier 1. The toss is at 7 pm, the first ball a little after 7.30, and for all the talk of a rematch, the things that decide a final like this rarely turn out to be the ones everybody discussed two days earlier.
RCB arrive as defending champions and walk in trying to do something only Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians have managed before them, win the IPL in back-to-back seasons. Gujarat arrive as the home side, on the same ground where they were beaten by 92 runs last Tuesday, hoping a week is long enough to forget it.
The toss might matter more than the rematch
Ahmedabad in late May is a chasing ground, and the reason is dew. The surface itself is a good one to bat on, with true bounce and a fast outfield, but the bigger story under lights is the moisture that settles in the second half of the evening. When the ball gets wet, gripping it becomes a problem for seamers and spinners alike, and the side batting second tends to find life easier. Both captains know it. Whoever wins the toss is very likely to bowl first and back themselves to chase.
That makes the coin a real factor rather than a formality. A par total here sits somewhere around 180 to 200, and the team setting the score has to be brave enough to push past it knowing the dew is coming. RCB already showed in Qualifier 1 what their batting can do when it clicks, posting 254 for 5. The question is whether they get the chance to bat first at all, or whether Gujarat get to do what they do best and run down a target with Shubman Gill leading the way.
Gujarat are sweating on Mohammed Siraj
The fitness of Mohammed Siraj is the unknown hanging over the Gujarat camp. Siraj needed attention to his shoulder during Qualifier 2 against Rajasthan Royals and looked uncomfortable, even though he saw out his full four overs. For a bowling attack that has already been Gujarat's weak point in this run, losing or limiting their senior seamer on the biggest night would hurt.
That is the part Gujarat cannot afford to get wrong. What lost them the first meeting was not their batting, it was the bowling, and the bowling is the harder thing to repair in a few days. If Siraj is below his best and the RCB top order gets away early the way it did in Dharamsala, no chase, not even one built around Gill, is guaranteed to be enough.
RCB have a selection call of their own
RCB's puzzle is a happier one. Phil Salt has recovered from the finger injury that kept him out for much of the back end of the tournament and is available for the final. The catch is that RCB won Qualifier 1 without him, with Venkatesh Iyer opening alongside Virat Kohli, and there is a strong case for not breaking up a side that scored 254 the last time out.
Salt at his best is exactly the kind of player who can settle a final inside the powerplay, and on a batting surface with dew to come, his hitting at the top is tempting. Whether the RCB think tank trusts a returning player in a final, or sticks with the eleven that dismantled Gujarat, is the call of the night for them.
What the first meeting really told us
The Qualifier 1 scoreline flatters nobody on the Gujarat side. Rajat Patidar walked in and made 93 not out off 33 balls, the fastest innings of 90 or more in IPL history, and RCB finished on 254 for 5, the highest total ever made in an IPL playoff. Gujarat were bowled out for 162 in reply. There was no contest in the second half of that match.
And yet Gujarat are here on the back of one of the biggest run chases IPL knockout cricket has seen, having run down 215 against Rajasthan, with Gill making 104 off 53 in the kind of form that keeps a captain's team alive in any final. Bengaluru know the ground holds nothing over them either. This is where they won their first title in June 2025, beating Punjab Kings in the final by six runs, so the venue carries good memories rather than nerves. Two batting line-ups in form, dew on the way, a toss that could tilt the night, and a fast bowler's shoulder that nobody outside the Gujarat dressing room can be sure about. That is the final, and it starts with the coin.
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