Gujarat get RCB again, at home, five days after a 92-run lesson
Gujarat Titans got what they wanted on Friday night, a place in the IPL 2026 final, and they got something they probably did not want at all: a rematch with Royal Challengers Bengaluru. The two meet on Sunday at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, five days after RCB beat Gujarat by 92 runs in Qualifier 1. That is not a result you shrug off. It is the kind of beating that lingers.
Just think back to what happened in Dharamsala. Rajat Patidar walked in and made 93 not out off 33 balls, the fastest innings of 90 or more the IPL has ever seen, and RCB finished on 254 for 5, the highest total in the competition's playoff history. Gujarat's reply lasted about as long as it takes to read this sentence. They were bowled out for 162. There was no contest in the back half of that game, and pretending otherwise on Sunday would be a mistake.
So why might Gujarat fancy it anyway?
Because of the man who dragged them here. Shubman Gill has been the best batsman in this tournament for weeks, and his 104 off 53 against Rajasthan in Qualifier 2 was the innings of a captain who has decided this is his season. A team built around a batsman in that kind of touch is never out of a final, especially one chasing. Gujarat just pulled off the highest successful chase in IPL playoff history. Whatever RCB put up, Gill has shown he can go after it.
There is the venue too. Ahmedabad is Gujarat's home, and a home final in front of their own crowd is worth something real on a tight night. They know the surface, they know the boundaries, and they have a settled top order in Gill and Sai Sudharsan that can take the game away inside six overs the way it did against Rajasthan.
And why RCB still start in front
Here is the part Gujarat fans will not enjoy. The Narendra Modi Stadium is exactly where RCB won their first title last June, beating Punjab Kings in the final, so the ground holds no fear for them at all. They arrive as defending champions, into a second straight final, with a top order that put 254 on the board the last time these two played. Patidar is in ridiculous form, Virat Kohli has had one of his better seasons at 37, and the batting depth that overwhelmed Gujarat in Dharamsala has not gone anywhere.
What lost Gujarat the first game was their bowling, not their batting, and that is the harder thing to fix in five days. If they let Patidar and the RCB openers settle again, no chase, not even one led by Gill in this form, is going to be enough.
My read is that Gujarat have a genuine puncher's chance, and it rests almost entirely on two things going right at once: Gill batting deep, and the bowlers keeping RCB to something under 200. Get both and Ahmedabad could have a party. Get only the first, and we have seen how that ends. RCB start as favourites, and on the evidence of Qualifier 1, deservedly so. But finals have a way of ignoring what happened five days earlier, and Gujarat have the one player capable of making the rest of it irrelevant.
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