Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), who are the defending champions of the Indian Premier League 2026, will open their championship defense with Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Saturday, March 28, at the historic Chinnaswamy Stadium. RCB have reinforced their team with some prominent players such as Venkatesh Iyer, Jacob Duffy and Jordan Cox in a bid to maintain their crown.
Contrarily, SRH will start their campaign without their usual skipper Pat Cummins, who is out due to injuries. Ishan Kishan will be in charge of the side in the first matches in his absence. The Orange Army has tilted towards a young team this season, and one of their few high-profile acquisitions is Liam Livingstone, after a huge amount was paid at the auction.
Let us have a look at the top three players who could emerge as the top scorer in the RCB vs SRH match:
1. One of the players to look at is Kishan, who is a good candidate to be one of the best scorers in the tournament opener. Having just finished a highly successful ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026, the wicketkeeper-batter was the second-highest batsman in India, with 317 runs in nine innings, at a phenomenal strike rate of 193.29. After returning, he has been in a crazy mode with 532 runs in 13 T20Is at a rate of 207 with a hundred and four fifties.
Kishan also had a good season at IPL 2025 with a total of 354 runs in 13 innings, including a phenomenal 106 without being caught on his SRH debut against the Rajasthan Royals.
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2. Any RCB match would feel incomplete without their all-time top scorer, Virat Kohli. The current title-winning campaign that they had last season could not have been achieved without the former captain, who played 15 innings and scored 657 runs. Kohli remains the leader in the batting charts of the tournament with 8,661 IPL runs. His good history against SRH of 805 runs in 24 innings qualifies him as one of the main threats in the first clash.
3. Rajat Patidar had an average but a significant season with Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the IPL 2025, in which he was instrumental in helping the franchise win its first title.
Patidar was an important middle-order player, who mostly stabilized the innings besides increasing when needed. He hit some 312 runs throughout the season with an average strike rate of 143.78. Though he did not make headlines all the time, his input was important at the right time and particularly during times of pressure when RCB demanded partnerships.
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