IPL 2026 Opener Match: The 19th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is going to start from Saturday (28 March). The first match of this season will be played between defending champions Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). This match, to be held at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, will start at 7:30 pm Indian time, where fans can see rain of fours and sixes.

In this match, most eyes will be on RCB’s star batsman and former captain Virat Kohli, who will return to the field after a long time. At the same time, the responsibility of captaincy will also be important for young wicketkeeper batsman Ishan Kishan. Ishan is leading SRH in the initial matches due to injury to regular captain Pat Cummins.

Hyderabad’s opening pair is dangerous

Sunrisers Hyderabad’s opening pair Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma are considered very dangerous. In the last two seasons, the trio of Head, Abhishek and Ishan Kishan has created problems for many teams. His specialty has been to give fast starts in the powerplay and make big scores easy.

RCB would like to settle the score of the previous defeat in this match. SRH made many records in the 2024 season, including scoring 100 runs in just 30 balls against Lucknow Super Giants. Last season, in the clash between the two teams, SRH had scored 231 runs, in which Ishan Kishan played a brilliant inning of unbeaten 94 runs on 48 balls. In that match, RCB lost by 42 runs, however later the team made a brilliant comeback and won the IPL title for the first time.

RCB will go to defend the title this year

This time RCB team looks even stronger. Apart from Virat Kohli, players like Phil Salt, Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Venkatesh Iyer, Jacob Duffy and Jordan Cox strengthen the team. Under the leadership of captain Rajat Patidar, the team will aim to win the second consecutive title. However, the absence of fast bowler Josh Hazlewood may hurt the team, as he is not fully fit yet.

The matches between the two teams have always been exciting. So far 26 matches have been played between RCB and SRH in the IPL, in which SRH has won 14 and RCB has won 11, while one match remained inconclusive.

Probable playing XI of both the teams

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Phil Salt, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (captain), Jitesh Sharma (wicketkeeper), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Romario Shepherd, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Suyash Sharma, Jacob Duffy.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan (C/W), Heinrich Klaasen, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Liam Livingstone, Aniket Verma, Harshal Patel, Jaydev Unadkat, Brydon Carse, Shivam Mavi.

With SRH’s aggressive top order on one side and champion RCB’s balanced team on the other side, this match is expected to be high-scoring and full of thrills.