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GT vs RCB, IPL 2026 Finals (PC: BCCI/IPL) Gujarat Titans (GT) skipper Shubman Gill admitted that his side fell short with the bat in the IPL 2026 final in Ahmedabad, as Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) secured a five-wicket victory to clinch their second consecutive IPL title on Sunday. During the post-match presentation, Gill reflected on his side’s batting struggles and their inability to build momentum after losing early wickets. “If we’d have gotten 180–190, it’d have been a good match,” Gill said. “Maybe a little two-paced [the pitch] , but not too much. There was some early movement for the pacers. We lost early wickets and never got momentum. We felt we’d be in the game if we took one or two wickets in the powerplay.” Batting first, GT suffered early setbacks as openers Gill (10) and Sai Sudharsan (12) were dismissed cheaply. Washington Sundar anchored the innings with an unbeaten half-century off 37 balls, while Nishant Sindhu (20) and Jos Buttler (19)...

Virat Kohli (PC: IPL/BCCI) There are pretenders, there’s a nouveau star, and then there’s the master. No disrespect to Vaibhav S oo ryavanshi – the Orange Cap is richly deserved. He is undoubtedly a star for the future. For the moment, though, the stage still belongs to Virat Kohli. On a tricky Ahmedabad pitch, his masterclass in the final against Gujarat Titans (GT) secured a second successive IPL title for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) . Rajat Patidar, as captain, is now in elite company, rubbing shoulders with MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma. He owes Kohli a thank you. After restricting GT to 155, RCB looked to be running away with the game through a 62-run opening partnership between Kohli and Venkatesh Iyer in just 4.3 overs. Then the wickets began to fall. A double-wicket over from Rashid Khan made things edgy for RCB. But Kohli was still there, and as long as he remained at the crease, his team appeared destined to win. Class never dies. RCB won by five wickets with 1...

  The T20 Mumbai League is set to get underway on June 1st at the iconic Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, bringing top-tier local franchise cricket back to one of India’s most celebrated cricketing venues. The tournament was officially launched at an event in the city on May 30th, attended by several prominent names from Mumbai’s cricketing fraternity. Five marquee cricketers- Shreyas Iyer, Shivam Dube, Shardul Thakur, Ajinkya Rahane, and Sarfaraz Khan have been named as captains of their respective franchises for the season. All five players have represented Mumbai at the domestic level, alongside featuring for the Indian national team. Now, they will compete against each other as franchise rivals. Matches will be played across June, with the tournament running in the Twenty20 format. The competition is also expected to draw attention from IPL scouts, who are known to monitor domestic tournaments for emerging talent. The T20 Mumbai League is positioned as a significant a...

Shubman Gill ( Image: IPL/X) The debate around Virat Kohli being called the “King” and Shubman Gill being referred to as the “Prince” is an interesting cultural conversation in Indian cricket. At one level, it is harmless fan banter. At another, it reveals something deeper about how we Indians consume sport and construct sporting mythology. The truth is that the labels are both appropriate and premature. Why appropriate? Because sport, much like cinema in South India, thrives on archetypes. We do not merely watch athletes. We assign them roles in a larger narrative. Virat Kohli’s journey over the last decade has earned him a place that transcends statistics. He isn’t just a batsman who scores runs. He became the face of Indian cricket’s most aggressive and self-assured era. He walked into hostile overseas conditions, stared down opponents, demanded excellence and redefined fitness standards. Whether one likes him or not, Kohli changed the cult...

  Shubman Gill (PC:Shubman Gill/X) I have watched the highlights of Shubman Gill’s century against Rajasthan Royals a few times and think it was one of the best innings of this IPL. It was all class and, under pressure, a leadership statement from India’s red-ball and ODI captain. Another 700-run season, and it is clear that Gill has started to push the door open for a possible return to the national T20 team. While there is serious competition from Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan and now Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, all of whom have done enough to stake their claims, ignoring Gill’s credentials is not going to be easy. He is India’s best all-format batter and has clearly turned things around in T20 cricket as well. Sport is always about performance, and that is what will decide Gill’s future in the format. At the moment, he seems to be batting at his best and has scored heavily this season. It does not seem as though he is in a hurry or trying to play too many shots at th...

GT and RCB will lock horns for the ultimate prize. (PC: BCCI) The Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad is all set for a high-octane final of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 season, as the defending champions, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), take on Gujarat Titans (GT). With a host of stars set to face off against one another, here we look at the three key player match-ups that could determine which team lifts the trophy. Virat Kohli vs Jason Holder The towering GT all-rounder, Holder, is currently in spectacular form. He recently dismissed both Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal in Qualifier 1, while maintaining an economy rate of 9.75. Earlier in the season, during the league stage, he dismissed Kohli for just 43 in Bengaluru and produced a bowling masterclass to halt RCB’s momentum. In Qualifier 2 against the Rajasthan Royals (RR), he proved that his wicket-taking exploits against RCB were no fluke, as he successfully dismantled the opposition’s middle order with another...

West Indies_ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 (PC: Windies Cricket) The West Indies are currently preparing for the upcoming ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in June-July in England and Wales. After a disastrous start to the year in the shortest format of the game, the team have already won two back-to-back games in the ongoing tri-series involving Ireland and Pakistan. In the World Cup, they are placed in Group 2 alongside the hosts England, defending champions New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Scotland, and Ireland. They are also scheduled to play warm-up games against India and Australia. Squad: Hayley Matthews (c), Chinelle Henry, Deandra Dottin, Stafanie Taylor, Afy Fletcher, Aaliyah Alleyne, Shemaine Campbelle, Ashmini Munisar, Karishma Ramharack, Jannillea Glasgow, Jahzara Claxton, Qiana Joseph, Zaida James, Mandy Mangru, Shawnisha Hector Strength Hayley Matthews, the skipper, remains the biggest key factor behind West Indies’ success. In eight wins since the 2024 T20 World Cup, she has f...

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (Image: IPL/BCCI) How many adjectives are required to describe the greatness of a 15-year-old wielding the willow? A hundred? A thousand? Or maybe there are certain events that can’t be described with mere words on a large canvas? When it comes to Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, the third option would be the right one. In the Qualifier 2 game played in Mullanpur, Gujarat Titans’ redoubtable pace attack kept Vaibhav relatively quiet for long periods. The operative word is relative here, as instead of Vaibhav cracking a fifty in just 15-16 deliveries, he was on 50 off 31 deliveries at one point. The plan was simple – most of the seamers would bowl on a shorter length from over the wicket, with deliveries angled away from Vaibhav. Prasidh Krishna, the fourth of the seamers, did tuck him up from around the wicket and forced a top edge, only for the catch to be dropped. However, the rest of them stuck to one strategy and executed it to near perfection. Yet in betwee...

Arun Dhumal-Chairman, IPL. Image :X Social media brings with it added social responsibility. For men and women like us who are in the domain, even more so. And if you are a cricketer in the public glare, you need to be far more conscious and restrained. A random post can result in a huge uproar, and one of the things in the IPL that literally went out of hand was how cricketers turned into content creators and started posting social media content. Since then, the BCCI has issued a seven-page diktat urging restraint and once again reinforcing certain rules. It was natural that I would ask Arun Dhumal, Chairman of the IPL, what he thinks of this social media disease, if I may call it that. “I don’t think cricketers need to be content creators,” said Dhumal. No beating around the bush and no holding back. He was straight on the front foot and made the point. Taking a second to collect his thoughts, he went on, “The cricketer’s job is to play good cricket. If they do so, there will be e...

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (Image: IPL/BCCI) By now, every broadcaster in the country knows one thing with absolute certainty. When Vaibhav Sooryavanshi walks out to bat, audiences stop scrolling. That is not a metaphor anymore. It is now visible in second-screen behaviour, live concurrency spikes, meme velocity, short-video circulation and watch-time retention curves. In a season where there has been growing fatigue around repetitive six-hitting, Vaibhav has accidentally rediscovered something television desperately needed: anticipation. And anticipation is the most valuable currency in sport.   If I were the executive producer on the official broadcast for the remainder of IPL 2026, I would not merely “cover” Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. I would build the entire emotional architecture of the playoffs around the possibility of what he might do next. That is the secret modern sports broadcasting understands better than most viewers do. Fans do not tune in only for outcomes anymore. They tun...

Yastika Bhatia. Image :BCCI Women Trisha Ghosal, Chelmsford India’s no 3 for this game, Yastika Bhatia admitted that months of hard work behind the scenes made her comeback innings against England even more special as she helped India recover from an early collapse to take a 1-0 lead in the T20I series. Here’s excerpts from Yastika’s post match press conference: “A lot of work has gone into coming back” Having spent a lengthy spell away from the game recovering from ACL surgery, Bhatia spoke candidly about the challenges of rehabilitation and the people who helped her return to international cricket. “I’m very grateful,” she said. “A lot of work has gone into coming back again into the team. The Centre of Excellence, the physios, trainers, surgeons, my family and friends all supported me through that period.” Bhatia explained that ACL recovery often involves rebuilding strength from scratch and admitted there were phases where progress seemed invisible. “There were days where no...

India Women (PC: BCCI) India began their England tour with an emphatic win. They scored 188/7 in their 20 overs after being sent in to bat, while England fell well short of the total, managing just 150/8. India started their innings on a poor note with stand-in captain Smriti Mandhana becoming the first Indian woman batter to be dismissed off the first ball of a T20I match. Her RCB teammate Lauren Bell got the better of her. Credit also has to be given to the field placement as England stand-in skipper Charlie Dean got it spot on, placing a short extra cover where Mandhana eventually got caught. In the same over, fellow opener Shafali Verma holed out to mid-on trying to play a lofted on-drive. With captain Harmanpreet Kaur rested, Yastika Bhatia found a place in the playing XI and burst onto the scene with a flurry of boundaries against Issy Wong, giving Jemimah Rodrigues at the other end enough time to settle before playing her shots. Wong conceded 27 runs in the second over. From ...

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (Image: IPL/BCCI) “Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s bat swing has been outstanding. What’s even more remarkable is how beautifully he clears his front foot to create room for balls aimed at his legs. This freedom allows him to play the way he does. That innings was nothing short of spectacular!” This was not Joe Public’s opinion, but something the great Sachin Tendulkar posted on X minutes after Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s epic 29-ball 97 in the IPL Eliminator. And if we look around us, it is not hard to see why he wrote what he did. Indian cricket badly needs a new star. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is now done, while Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are nearing the end. Jasprit Bumrah is in and out, Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya are also blowing hot and cold, and Rishabh Pant is struggling. While Shubman Gill is holding fort in red-ball cricket, Indian white-ball cricket is in search of its next star. With an innings laden with 12 sixes, Vaibhav could well be on his way to becoming...

Sooryavanshi starred with the bat for RR. (PC: BCCI) Rajasthan Royals (RR) teen sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi revealed that the coaches told him not to take pressure in the eliminator against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) after smashing a record-breaking 29-ball 97 in New Chandigarh. Playing his first ever knockout game in the IPL, Sooryavanshi showed no signs of fear as he took apart SRH’s well rounded bowling attack to cleaners. The swashbuckling batted got to his fifty in 16 deliveries, making him the joint fastest to reach the milestone in the IPL playoffs history. He came close to smashing the record of the fastest ton but fell three runs short of the coveted three figure mark. During the mid-innings break, Sooryavanshi said he was told to enjoy himself and bat like he’s been batting in the practice sessions, an advice that paid dividends. “No, it was somewhere in my mind, but all the coaches told me to do exactly what I’ve been doing in practice, enjoy the game, and not take pre...

Indian team doing a catching drill. Image :Trisha Ghosal, Revsportz Trisha Ghosal, Chelmsford The India women’s team wrapped up an engaging and eventful practice session at the Ambassador Cruise Line Ground in Chelmsford on Tuesday evening, blending serious preparation with moments of genuine laughter ahead of the T20I series. What started as a routine warm-up quickly turned into one of the more entertaining fielding sessions seen at training grounds in recent times. Water balloons became the tool of choice for India’s catching drills, forcing players to soften their hands while taking catches. The concept was simple — catch cleanly or risk getting drenched. Quite a few balloons burst during the exercise, and at one stage Smriti Mandhana ended up with water splashed all over her sunglasses. Yet the mood within the group remained extremely light-hearted, with players laughing through the session while still maintaining intensity.   Shafali and Renuka Steal the Show The f...

RCB outclass GT in Qualifier 1( PC- IPL official instagram handle) Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) registered a resounding victory over Gujarat Titans (GT) in Qualifier 1 of IPL 2026, held at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamshala. Batting first, RCB posted a massive 254 on the board, with GT’s bowlers finding it difficult to adapt to the surface while poor fielding further compounded their problems. RCB eventually sealed a commanding 92-run win to book their place in the IPL final for the second successive year. Here are some of the highlights from the game: RCB batters unleash carnage in the powerplay RCB rained boundaries in the powerplay with smart shot selection, precise timing and excellent placement to keep the scoreboard moving. They took on the likes of Kagiso Rabada and Mohammed Siraj with confidence and ease. Venkatesh Iyer looked promising with a range of 360-degree strokes but fell to Rabada after mistiming a shot that resulted in a top edge, brilliantly caught by Shubman G...

Uncapped Indian pacers in IPL 2026 (PC: BCCI/IPL)  The Indian Premier League has always been a platform where young cricketers make name for themselves, and 2026 season was no different. While several established stars grabbed the headlines but a there’s a group of uncapped Indian pacers who made impression with their pace and control under pressure. India constantly search for strong bench strength ahead of major tournaments, and these young fast bowlers have shown glimpses of the potential for the future. Prince Yadav Lucknow Super Giants’ (LSG) right-arm pacer Prince Yadav had a breakthrough season in IPL 2026. After making his mark in domestic cricket and the Delhi Premier League, the 24-year-old carried the momentum into the IPL. He was acquired by LSG for Rs 30 lakh in the 2025 mega auction. In his debut season he featured in six games and picked up three wickets. It was his 2026 campaign where he really stood out as he claimed 16 wickets in 14 matches for LSG while main...

Images :X ‘Can Royal Challengers Bengaluru lift the IPL title for the second time in a row?’ Be it in Kannada or English, this aforesaid question has become the main talking point in various parts of Bengaluru. But for their beloved franchise to hoist the coveted trophy, RCB have to first wade through the challenge of Gujarat Titans in Qualifier 1. For a moment, just glance through the league phase, the only point of difference between the two sides was net run rate. From RCB’s point of view, they would be quite confident of their batting unit. Even if Phil Salt doesn’t pass the fitness test ahead of the game, RCB would believe in Venkatesh Iyer to turbocharge the powerplay overs alongside Virat Kohli. After all, he played with a fair amount of panache in RCB’s previous game against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Despite worry lines over Salt’s fitness and Jitesh Sharma’s form, RCB’s bigger concerns could lie somewhere on the bowling side of thin...

  Toxic fan culture is yet again back to haunt us. The Travis Head–Virat Kohli handshake issue has now reached Head’s wife and family, and yet again we have seen red lines crossed. May I say, this isn’t the first time. Each time something happens, we see these trolls (read rascals) discredit fandom and do something sinister. The fact is, no one – and yes, no one – can target a player’s family. It is a firm no. Having experienced it first-hand during the ban, I know what it is like for your mother, wife or child to be called names. This is where social media turns into filth, and something ought to be done immediately to mediate and monitor things. The toxic fan army on Twitter and other social media platforms need to understand that, by being blindly loyal to an individual, the larger cause is defeated. By attacking Head’s wife, no loyalty to Kohli is being proved. And this is perhaps the only truth. The Indian fandom, so focused on individuals, is actually vicious and poisonous...