Cometh the hour. Cometh the man. Virat Kohli, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) talisman, stepped up in the all-important Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 final against the Gujarat Titans at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The experienced campaigner hit an unbeaten 75 to help RCB chase down 156 to win the 19th edition of the T20 tournament. The right-handed batter who scored more than 650 runs in the IPL 2026 season, reserved his best for the final, where he hit his fastest IPL fifty off just 25 balls. Kohli was rightly awarded the Player of the Match.
After the final, the seasoned pro made a candid revelation that he always wanted to stand up for his team and take the side through in the summit clash. It is worth noting that RCB, along with the Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, is the only franchise to have won the IPL back-to-back.
“It’s stuff that you dream of. I have thought about this many times. Once, when we win the IPL, I should be standing there hitting the winning runs, and tonight it was possible. So, yeah, just a dream day for us and as I mentioned straight after the game as well, we just felt really relaxed coming to the game today and really confident about how we wanted to go about our game and what kind of team we have. And that gives you confidence to just see any kind of situation through. In a chase, I felt really comfortable out there knowing exactly what to do,” Kohli said in a conversation with Ravi Shastri.
Kohli, who has been playing in the IPL since the first edition in 2008, took 19 years to score his fastest fifty in the competition. And safe to say, the maverick was quite pleased with the fact. When Shastri brought up this fact, Kohli also smiled.
“Such is the demand of the sport today. I mean, you have these super young players pushing you all the time and really asking you to change your game and up the ante. And it’s an exciting situation because it gives you something to improve on, something to work towards. I just take a lot of pride in getting better and just trying to figure out areas where I can improve,” said Kohli.
“It was just a case of the demands of today’s modern game where you need to get those 20-30 extra runs, and I had to kind of change my mindset, not my game so much, to hit the shots I hit, but more often and take the bowlers on, probably the best bowlers in the opposition. That was always my target. So, very happy I was able to contribute towards the team cause,” he added.
Kohli came out all guns blazing in the final during the chase and smoked Kagiso Rabada all around the park. In the summit clash, the 37-year-old scored 25 runs in the six deliveries he faced off the South African speedster. Midway through his knock, the experienced batter also started cramping up, but he ensured that he stayed till the end to take the RCB over the line.
The former India captain also said he was always confident about RCB’s chances in the final and wasn’t bothered by who the opposition was, saying the team was prepared for everyone. He also added that while the T20 format might be moving towards a more slambang approach, one will always have big boys and experienced players to step up in important games.
“The first target was to finish top of the table. We achieved that. A lot of people asked us, ” Who do you prefer in the finals? And we said, it doesn’t matter to us. We don’t care what jersey is in front of us. We are playing great cricket. We want to focus on RCB and not the other teams. And we’re going to be respectful of all the other teams,” said Kohli.
“We don’t poke any other team. We’re very happy to carry on playing professional cricket. We have a lot of mature players in the group, a lot of experienced guys and the experience always shines through in difficult situations. You can have all the excitement and slam-bang in the world, but come the big situations, you need the big boys to step up, and that’s exactly what we did,” he added.
Chat with Venky Iyer
The IPL 2026 final between RCB and GT saw Rajat Patidar winning the toss and opting to bowl. Rasikh Salam Dar scalped three while Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar returned with two wickets each as RCB registered the Gujarat Titans to 155/8.
Kohli and Venkatesh Iyer then began RCB’s chase in style as the duo brought up the team’s fifty inside four overs. The eventual champions lost wickets in a cluster, but Kohli ensured that the team got over the line with five wickets in hand and 12 balls to spare.
“Simple chat to Venky in the change room and I just told him one thing, we need to kill the game in the powerplay and he said, yeah, let’s go. So, it was total clarity. There was no doubt at any stage when both of us were going; we just wanted to strike. We just wanted to take the bowlers on because we knew in a big game, if you lose a couple of wickets, things can get tricky. So, never let the run rate go up to seven and a half, eight. And then we had small targets in mind,” said Kohli.
“When you get the score under those targets, then you can really go and play free cricket. So, yeah, credit to Venkatesh as well. He stepped in and did a beautiful job up top, and his intent was probably the difference maker for us in the last three, four games,” he added.