IPL 2026: SRH hammer RCB by 55 runs, fall short of top-two finish

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) finished the league stage with a 55-run win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in Match 67 of the Indian Premier League 2026 (IPL 2026) on Friday, May 22, at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad. 

After opting to bat first, SRH posted a humongous score of 255/4 in their allotted 20 overs as Ishan Kishan, Abhishek Sharma (56 off 22) and Heinrich Klaasen (51 off 24) flexed their batting muscles. In reply, RCB were restricted to 200/4 in their 20 overs with captain Rajat Patidar (56 off 39) scoring a half-century, while Venkatesh Iyer (44 off 19) also made a valuable contribution.

Meanwhile, despite their massive win, SRH failed to break into the top two of the IPL 2026 points table. They finished the league stage on third position with 18 points from 14 games. On the other hand, RCB finished with 18 points from 14 games as well, but finished on top due to a superior net run rate (+0.783).

As a result, RCB qualified for Qualifier 1 fixture, where they will take on second-placed Gujarat Titans (GT) on May 26 in Dharamsala. On the other hand, SRH qualified for the Eliminator fixture, where they will face the team finishing fourth on the table.

Top run-scorer of the Match

Top wicket-taker of the Match

Player of the Match

Ishan Kishan won his second successive Player of the Match award for his magnificent innings of 79* (46), laced with eight fours and three sixes. He got involved in massive stands with Abhishek Sharma of 52 runs (26 balls), Heinrich Klaasen of 113 runs (48 balls) and Nitish Kumar Reddy of 45 runs (22 balls) to guide SRH to a humongous score of 255.

Turning Point

Chasing a mammoth target of 256 runs, RCB came out all guns blazing as Venkatesh Iyer (44 off 19) and Virat Kohli (15 off 11) stitched a 60-run stand off 27 balls for the first wicket. However, SRH quickly made a comeback, dismissing Iyer, Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal (21 off 14) in quick succession to leave RCB at 94/3 in 8.5 overs. From there on, the visitors decided not to go after the chase and just secured their spot in the top two by reaching the score of 166.

What did the captains say:

Winning Captain, Pat Cummins (Sunrisers Hyderabad):

It was great. The boys batted fantastically. Pretty good wicket, knew a lot of things had to go our way. We threw a few things at them, it's still a big win. The way Eshan has bowled all tournament, Sakib there as well, captain's dream. We'll rest for a couple of days. We'll know who we're playing in a couple of days.

Losing Captain, Rajat Patidar (Royal Challengers Bengaluru):

(Too many runs on the board?) Obviously, I think their top five batsmen played really well, and they purely dominated in the first innings. (Pitch slowed down?) Not really, but I think the slow bouncer was gripping a bit, but I think the way... their strength is slow bouncers and yorkers, they executed pretty well. (Top priority to finish on top?) The top priority was to be on the top, but I think, there were a lot of runs in the first inning. I think 255 is a good score on this wicket. And I think their five bowlers executed the slow bouncers and yorkers pretty well. (Wasn't easy to hit the slow bouncers?) Obviously, Hyderabad, I think it's a good wicket, but when you start bowling slow bouncers, slow into the wicket, I think it's really tough for the batsman to score the runs.