Virat Kohli hit an unbeaten 75 off 42 balls to guide Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) to their second consecutive Indian Premier League (IPL) title, defeating Gujarat Titans by five wickets in a lopsided final at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday. Bengaluru bowled Gujarat out for 155-8, then chased the target down with 12 balls to spare, Kohli sealing victory with a six in front of a crowd of more than 90,000 — making it the largest cricket ground in the world by attendance.

The result completes a remarkable turnaround for RCB, a franchise based in Bengaluru, the capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka, who went 18 IPL seasons without a title before winning their first last year. Captain Rajat Patidar, celebrating his 33rd birthday, joins an elite group of IPL skippers to have won back-to-back titles, alongside MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma. Kohli, 37, who retired from Test and T20 international cricket but continues to play one-day internationals for India, was named player of the match. He finished fourth in the season's run charts with 675 runs, behind tournament player of the tournament Vaibhav Sooryavanshi — a 15-year-old from Rajasthan Royals who scored a remarkable 776 runs. "Stuff you dream of," Kohli said after the match. "We knew exactly what to do in the chase."

Bengaluru's bowlers set the platform, with pace bowler Rasikh Salam taking 3-27 alongside Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who took two wickets each. Gujarat's innings never recovered from losing openers Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan cheaply, and only Washington Sundar's defiant unbeaten 50 gave their total any respectability. In the chase, Kohli and Venkatesh Iyer put on 62 for the first wicket before Rashid Khan sparked a brief Gujarat fightback, removing Patidar and Krunal Pandya in quick succession. Kohli then steadied the innings alongside Tim David and Jitesh Sharma to carry Bengaluru home.

The celebrations back in Bengaluru were jubilant but measured, in part because of the shadow cast by last year's victory. A fatal stampede outside the city's Chinnaswamy Stadium during the 2025 title celebrations killed 11 people, a tragedy that shook the country and led to the stadium being closed to top-flight cricket for nearly eight months. This time, police patrolled major gathering points across the city, closing high-speed roads and enforcing checks on drunk driving. Fans danced in the streets, and authorities reported no serious incidents. In Ahmedabad, Patidar paid tribute to the victims, and RCB players had worn jersey number 11 throughout the tournament in their honour, with 11 permanent seats also marked at Chinnaswamy Stadium as a memorial. "Enjoy in the right spirit," the city's police commissioner Seemanth Kumar urged fans — and by most accounts, they did.