During the IPL 2026 match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Lucknow Super Giants, RCB star batter Virat Kohli had a conversation on the field after the game with Sanjiv Goenka, owner of LSG. RCB ended up winning this match by 5 wickets at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru to move into a tie for 2nd place at that point with the LSG on the IPL points table. Kohli finished the match out from an earlier 49 runs (not out). Also notable about the game is that RCB dismissed LSG for 146 runs with RCB making the winning runs for a 5-wicket victory in about 15 overs. As each of the fast bowlers used by RCB (Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar) was an experienced professional with respect to international experience and their youth (Salam Dar) with limited T20 match experience; that added to RCB’s success in this game. Unlike the normal surface for T20s, this was much slower than expected; therefore, RCB’s strategy was thrown into disarray with these lower runs scored against the LSG fast bowling arsenal. With both the performance of the Chinnaswamy Stadium pitch and bowlers of LSG, Kohli and RCB captain Rajat Patidar helped RCB to victory in a 5-wicket by knocking off LSG’s 147 runs in 15.1 overs with 29 balls to spare, with 49 runs from Kohli and 27 from Patidar. Even though Phil Salt had early left the ground due to being dismissed for being caught out in the 1st over, Kohli scored more than 200 runs in RCB’s innings.
Kohli hit four boundaries off one of Prince Yadav’s overs, while Devdutt Padikkal & Kohli added 57 runs for the second wicket, with Padikkal getting an attractive 10 runs out. The batting struggle for Kohli continues as after hitting 47 runs in his innings, he was caught by Nicholas Pooran off Avesh Khan when attempting to complete a half-century in his innings. Although Patidar continued hitting sixes (two consecutive hits off Mohammed Shami and one-off Prince) and also reduced LSG’s target significantly. RCB was able to secure the points in the game because of Patidar and Jitesh Sharma’s effort to complete the chase quickly, even when they got out. RCB showed that they were in front of LSG before the batters came to bat through a great spell from Salam (4/24), Bhuvneshwar (3/27), and Hazlewood (1/20). While Hazlewood ended up with just one wicket, his performance with the new ball during the power-play was a big part of LSG being bowled out for only 146 runs below par.
