NEW DELHI: Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper Pat Cummins won the toss and chose to bat first against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in their IPL 2026 match at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Friday. With both sides already assured of places in the playoffs, the contest promised to be a blend of routine preparation and fine-tuning ahead of the knockout phase. Cummins said his team would focus on building a big total and testing combinations before the finals.
“We’ll bat first. It’s a long shot to finish in the top two, but we’ll go after it tonight. The plan is to enjoy the evening and also see how well we can execute. We want to try a few things ahead of the finals, then bat first and put up as many runs as possible so we have a total we can defend,” Cummins said at the toss. He added that the qualification arriving before the final league game has been a major positive: “It’s been really pleasing to secure qualification before this last match. The group has been consistent throughout the year. So this one is probably the last game before we start getting serious.”
On the atmosphere at the venue, the Australian praised the support: “The crowd has been brilliant here at Uppal. The streets are lined up, and the hotels have been busy over the last few days. We’ve also won most of the night games at this ground this season, so hopefully we can finish in a strong way. We’re using the same combination as in the previous match,” Cummins added.
For RCB, captain Rajat Patidar returned to lead the team after missing the prior fixture against Punjab Kings. Patidar highlighted the importance of maintaining standards regardless of venue and also confirmed the injury update that opened his place back in the XI. “Wherever we play, it feels like a home game for us. It doesn’t matter where you are—you’ve got to keep your standards high in every match. You have to tick a lot of boxes. Bethell has a finger injury, and I’m back,” Patidar said at the toss.
Playing XIs
Royal Challengers Bengaluru
- Virat Kohli
- Devdutt Padikkal
- Rajat Patidar (c)
- Venkatesh Iyer
- Jitesh Sharma (w)
- Krunal Pandya
- Romario Shepherd
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar
- Josh Hazlewood
- Suyash Sharma
- Rasikh Salam Dar
Sunrisers Hyderabad
- Abhishek Sharma
- Travis Head
- Ishan Kishan (w)
- Heinrich Klaasen
- Salil Arora
- Smaran Ravichandran
- Nitish Kumar Reddy
- Pat Cummins (c)
- Shivang Kumar
- Eshan Malinga
- Sakib Hussain
Impact substitutes
Royal Challengers Bengaluru
- Tim David
- Kanishk Chouhan
- Swapnil Singh
- Abhinandan Singh
- Jordan Cox
Sunrisers Hyderabad
- Praful Hinge
- Aniket Verma
- Liam Livingstone
- Harsh Dubey
- Harshal Patel
