Dharamshala, May 25 (IANS) Royal Challengers Bengaluru will carry the quiet confidence of defending champions into Qualifier 1 when they face Gujarat Titans in a high-stakes clash at the HPCA Stadium on Tuesday. The winner goes straight to the final in Ahmedabad on Sunday, while the loser will need to take the longer road to get into the title clash.

Both sides ended the league stage on 18 points from 14 matches, with RCB claiming top spot on net run rate, as a reward for being the most consistently good side across the full league stage. When RCB cruised to a chase of 206 against GT in their backyard on April 24, the Shubman Gill-led side were still a conservative side stuck in the middle of the points table.

From that point, GT have surged to be the best bowling side in the competition and now find themselves in the running to get their second IPL title. But they run into an in-form RCB who have got a lot of things going in their favour – captain Rajat Patidar is in good nick, so as Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Venkatesh Iyer and Tim David.

Consistent returns from the new-ball pairing of Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar along with Krunal Pandya being frugal have helped RCB too. Meanwhile, GT’s late-season surge, though, has been built on bowling. Mohammed Siraj, Kagiso Rabada and Prasidh Krishna have struck hard with the new ball, while Rashid Khan and Jason Holder have controlled the middle overs with quiet authority.

An 89-run hammering of Chennai Super Kings in their final league game underlined GT’s arrival as one of the most formidable sides in the tournament right now, though Tuesday’s game will be the first time they will be playing an IPL game in Dharamshala, a place which favours teams winning by chasing – as seen from the sample size of two games in this season.

The individual duels will be worth watching closely – Kohli against Rabada and Siraj on a pitch offering extra bounce, and Hazlewood bowling to Gill and Sai Sudharsan in the powerplay where GT’s top-order reliance makes those first six overs critical in deciding the first finalist of IPL 2026.

Squads:

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Rajat Patidar (captain), Virat Kohli, Tim David, Jacob Bethell, Romario Shepherd, Josh Hazlewood, Nuwan Thushara, Devdutt Padikkal, Jitesh Sharma (wicketkeeper), Krunal Pandya, Rasikh Dar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jordan Cox, Suyash Sharma, Venkatesh lyer, Swapnil Singh, Jacob Duffy, Kanishk Chouhan, Abhinandan Singh, Mangesh Yadav, Phil Salt, Satvik Deswal, Vicky Ostwal, Vihaan Malhotra.

Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill (c), Jos Buttler (wk), Kumar Kushagra, Glenn Phillips, Rashid Khan, Manav Suthar, Nishant Sindhu, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Kagiso Rabada, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Jayant Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Ashok Sharma, Jason Holder, Tom Banton, Luke Wood, Sai Sudharsan, Rahul Tewatia, Arshad Khan, Anuj Rawat, Kulwant Khejroliya, Gurnoor Brar, M Shahrukh Khan

–IANS

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