SRH thump RCB by 55 at Uppal but GT keep the second seed on net run rate
Sunrisers Hyderabad finished the IPL 2026 league stage with their statement night of the season, posting 255 for 4 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium and then strangling Royal Challengers Bengaluru's chase to 200 for 4. The 55-run margin closed RCB's run on top of the table without dislodging them from it, and Gujarat Titans, who had finished their own campaign with an 89-run win on Thursday, walked into the playoffs as the second seed without lifting a bat.
SRH's opening salvo was the kind they used to live on. Abhishek Sharma muscled 56 from 22 deliveries and brought up his fifty in twenty balls, his first against Bengaluru in twelve attempts. Ishan Kishan kept the rate climbing with 79 from 46, his fourth consecutive fifty-plus score against RCB, and Heinrich Klaasen swung the back ten open with a 24-ball 51. Nitish Kumar Reddy then carved 29 not out from 12 to push the total past 250.
RCB never quite got into the chase
Venkatesh Iyer and Virat Kohli took the powerplay on. Eshan Malinga took out Venkatesh Iyer for 44 from 19, Sakib Hussain then got Kohli for 15 from 11, and Malinga returned to remove Devdutt Padikkal in quick order, leaving RCB chasing a rate they were never realistically built for tonight. Rajat Patidar dragged the innings back to something respectable with 56 from 39, and Krunal Pandya stayed on 41 not out from 31, but the asking rate slipped past twelve and stayed there.
Malinga finished with two for 33, and Bengaluru's last ten overs leaked only enough runs to bring the total to 200. Comfortable for the eye, nowhere near the target.
The NRR math that decided the top two
All three sides at the top finished the league stage on 18 points. RCB's net run rate of plus 0.783 stayed clear of Gujarat's plus 0.695, and SRH's win moved them only to plus 0.524. To leapfrog Gujarat, Sunrisers would have needed a margin closer to a hundred runs at the same total, and the chase Bengaluru put together, flawed but eventually orderly, kept Sunrisers short.
The result locks the playoff map RCB and Gujarat have been chasing for a fortnight. RCB take Qualifier 1 against Gujarat, with SRH dropping into the Eliminator. The fourth seed will be confirmed by the last league match, but for the top three, the league stage is now done.
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