A scintillating century by Sai Sudharsan was not enough as half centuries from Virat Kohli (81 off 44 balls) and Devdutt Padikkal (55 off 27 balls) helped Royal Challengers Bengaluru defeat Gujarat Titans by five wickets at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Friday night.

Batting first, GT posted 205 thanks to Sudharsan’s innings (100 of 58 balls), his third century overall in the IPL. GT looked well set to amass 230 at the halfway stage of the first innings.

But some tight bowling by the RCB bowlers in the back end of the innings, not conceding a single boundary in the last four, helped the home side pull things back.

The second innings would have panned out very differently had Washington Sundar held onto a simple catch when Kohli was batting at 0, but as it happened, the opening batter made the visitor pay for the costly drop.

Chasing totals is Kohli’s bread and butter and it was just not Kohli, but also Padikkal from the other end who managed the pace of the chase to perfection, unleashing the big shots at regular intervals to leave the middle order with very little to do.

GT staged a brief fightback in the back end of the innings by dismissing Rajat Patidar and Jitesh Sharma in quick succession, but Krunal Pandya and Tim David took RCB home.

Published on Apr 24, 2026