The last ball of the IPL 2026 season did not trickle away quietly. Virat Kohli finished it with a six and then made a gesture toward his doubters as teammates flooded the field around him. There was nothing modest about it. There never is when something this big gets settled.
The Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad had seen multiple finals unfold before it. From the ones where GT in 2022 and RCB in 2025 won their first IPL titles to ones where Gujarat Titans had lost a final against CSK in 2023 on the very last ball. But this time they arrived at this one with more experience, a deeper squad, and the comfort of playing on familiar soil. A different approach and an amazing group stage. The Qualifier 1 defeat against RCB itself is a reference that exposed the shortcomings, hoping to win the 2nd title.
But none of this was enough to stop the Royal Challengers Bengaluru from beating Gujarat Titans by five wickets. They were unable to stop the charge of the rising beast eyeing consecutive titles. With this win, they became only the third franchise in IPL history to defend the title, joining Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians in that company.
When Hazlewood Set the Tone
RCB captain Rajat Patidar won the toss and chose to bowl on a surface that had a slightly sticky feel to it. Josh Hazlewood, a man who has never lost a T20 or ODI final, got to work immediately. Seeking the continuation of his streak, which has existed for over a decade, and his own third IPL title.
Shubman Gill, GT’s captain and their leading run-scorer all season, was dismissed for 10, top-edging a short-arm pull off Hazlewood. Rajat Patidar held the catch. The crowd noise dropped. Gill walked off looking at his bat. The one player who could have made this a different match was gone before the game had properly started. Sai Sudharsan followed soon after, undone by Bhuvneshwar Kumar with a short ball that drew a thick top edge to the keeper. Two of GT’s most trusted batters were back in the pavilion inside the powerplay, and the pressure that followed never truly lifted.
Jos Buttler scratched around for 19 off 23 balls before Krunal Pandya caught him with a wide yorker that pinned him in front. Rahul Tewatia and Jason Holder barely made a mark. Washington Sundar was the only GT batter who refused to cooperate with the RCB-led collapse. Sundar brought up a composed 50 off 37 balls, the innings that gave GT something to bowl to. They finished on 155 for 8. It was not a total that inspired confidence. The bowlers would need to be extraordinary to defend it.
Rasikh Salam finished with 3 for 27, his best figures of an IPL that had already been his finest season. Bhuvneshwar took 2 for 29 and Hazlewood 2 for 37.
The Chase That Almost Became a Crisis
RCB began in a manner that suggested this would be over quickly. Kohli and Venkatesh Iyer added a fifty-run opening stand in just 3.5 overs, the fastest team fifty in an IPL final, surpassing a CSK record set at the same ground. While it was a total that looked easy to chase for the batting lineup commanded by Bangalore, cricket is an unpredictable game.
And then GT’s bowlers hit back. Mohammed Siraj had Venkatesh Iyer caught for a brisk 32 off 16 balls. One ball later, Kagiso Rabada dismissed Devdutt Padikkal for 1. RCB was suddenly 63 for 2, and the momentum had begun shifting towards GT. Then came the over that genuinely rattled RCB. Rashid Khan dismissed Rajat Patidar for 15 and then trapped Krunal Pandya lbw for 1 off the very next ball. RCB slipped to 91 for 4 after nine overs, needing 65 from 66 balls.
The stands went quiet in a different way this time. The ghost of every RCB near-miss in playoff cricket stirred somewhere in the atmosphere. Kohli was still there, but the wickets around him had collapsed and the target was no longer comfortable.
Kohli Closes the Door
What followed was not a blaze of boundaries. It was something quieter and more unsettling for GT: a man who simply refused to panic. A man with experience of countless knockouts, someone who overturned the unpredictability with his consistency, grabbing the wins for his team.
Kohli hit his fastest IPL fifty, and his innings of 75 not out off 42 balls became his highest playoff score in the tournament’s history. Tim David joined him at the crease, and together they put on a 41-run stand for the fifth wicket that brought the target back within reach.
RCB breached the total of 161 in 18 overs, winning by five wickets with 12 balls to spare. And then came the six, the gesture, and the roar of the KING.
Virat Kohli was named Player of the Match. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi of Rajasthan Royals, whose 776 runs across the season were unlike anything a teenager had ever produced in IPL cricket, was named Player of the Series.
What It Means
Ten years ago, RCB would have felt the world was against them. Chris Gayle left. AB de Villiers left. Kohli stayed and the team slowly rebuilt around him. Now they are back-to-back champions. Now they are in the same sentence as CSK and MI. And the man who never left is the one who finished it in a final with a six, in Ahmedabad, in the dark.
GT will return. They reached their third final in five years of existence, which is a record most franchises would envy. Gill will have more summers.
But this one belonged to Kohli and to the franchise that learned, eventually, how to win.
