Stakes will be high when Royal Challengers Bengaluru square off with the Sunrisers Hyderabad (RCB vs SRH) for the opener of the Indian Premier League 2026 (IPL 2026). The top-flight cricket rivalry will return to the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium for the match.
Both of the sides have top-notch batters in their line-up, and the pitch in Chinnaswamy is expected to be a batting-friendly turf. So, the match can be filled with boundaries all around the park, which can overshadow the omission of the opening ceremony.
RCB vs SRH Preview:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru or Sunrisers Hyderabad, who will win the match tonight? That’s the million-dollar question right now. In the past, whenever these two teams faced each other in a cricket match, most of the occasions resulted in high-scoring events. For example, take match number 30 of the IPL 2024 season, when both of the teams secured over 250 runs in their respective innings. Hyderabad won the match by 25 runs, scoring 287 runs in the first innings, and RCB went very close to chasing down the target as they got 262 runs on the board.
Your daily dose of cricket!
In their previous three encounters, at least one team secured a total of over 200. SRH emerged as the winner in their last match on May 23, 2025. Ishan Kishan’s high-flying unbeaten 94 assured 231 runs for SRH, which was enough to outplay RCB.
Ahead of the crucial match, these two teams have multiple similarities like both of the franchises have retained their core batters, both sides have an undercooked bowling department for the match, and both teams can hand debut caps to their respective emerging cricketers.
While RCB will play the match with their prime pacer Josh Hazlewood on the sidelines, SRH will decorate their bowling without Pat Cummins. In the absence of mainstay candidates, they will have to formulate a new bowling combination.
RCB vs SRH Toss Result Today IPL 2026 Match 1
RCB captain Rajat Patidar wins the toss and opted to bowl first.
“We’ll bowl first. There are a lot of good players in the side, everyone is fit and looking forward to this game. We’ll try our best to put a second star on the jersey,” RCB skipper Rajat Patidar said after winning the crucial toss.
RCB Playing XI vs SRH Today IPL 2026 Match 1
Phil Salt, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar (C), Jitesh Sharma (WK), Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Abhinandan Singh, Jacob Duffy, Suyash Sharma.
SRH Playing XI vs RCB Today IPL 2026 Match 1
Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan(w/c), Heinrich Klaasen, Aniket Verma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Salil Arora, Harsh Dubey, Harshal Patel, Jaydev Unadkat, Eshan Malinga
RCB vs SRH Impact Players Today IPL 2026 Match 1
SRH Impact Subs: Shivang Kumar, Liam Livingston, David Payne, Smaran Ravichandran, and Sakib Hussain.
RCB Impact Subs: Devdutt Padikkal, Jacob Bethell, Rasikh Dhar, Venkatesh Iyer, and Kanishk Chouhan.
Read More: Ex-CSK star’s shocking claim on RCB vs SRH match ahead of IPL 2026