IPL 2026 | RCB captain Rajat Patidar wins the toss and bowls first against SRH in season opener

Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Rajat Patidar won the toss in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 opener against Sunrisers Hyderabad and opted to bowl first at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

"We'll bowl first. Of course, there are a lot of positives from last year, but as we go into this season, we are not defending, we’ll try to be champions again in 2026, Patidar said at the toss.

RCB have two debutants in pacers Jacob Duffy and Abhinandan Singh, while most others were a part of the championship winning team last year.

"Everyone is fit and looking forward to this game. Thank you so much for supporting us over the years. We’ll try our best to put a second star on our jersey. There are two new faces - Jacob Duffy and Abhinandan Singh who are going to play their first match," Patidar added.

Meanwhile, captaining for the first time in IPL, Ishan Kishan said he would have bowled first as well.

"Feeling good because it’s our first game. We would have bowled first after winning the toss, but it looks like a fresh wicket. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether you’re batting first or bowling first, you just need to back your instincts. That will be the plan," Kishan said.

RCB playing 11: Virat Kohli, Philip Salt, Rajat Patidar(c), Jitesh Sharma(w), Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Abhinandan Singh, Jacob Duffy, Suyash Sharma

Impact Player options: Devdutt Padikkal, Jacob Bethell, Rasikh Salam Dar, Kanishk Chouhan, Venkatesh Iyer

SRH playing 11: ): 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

Impact Player options: Shivang Kumar, Liam Livingstone, David Payne, Smaran Ravichandran, Sakib Hussain