The Royal Challengers Bengaluru batter claimed that the “win is as much for the fans as it is for the team.”
Krunal Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar played a big part in ending the 18-year wait for the maiden title on Tuesday night.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru scored 190 runs for nine wickets (Kohli 43, Arshdeep 3-40, Jamieson 3-48) and beat Punjab Kings, who scored 184 runs for seven wickets (Shashank 61*, Inglis 39, Krunal 2-17, Bhuvneshwar 2-38), by six runs.
For 18 years, they thought “ee sala cup namde” (this year the cup is ours), but 17 of those years ended in terrible disappointment for one of the IPL’s strongest and most dedicated fan bases, and three of those years ended with a loss at the last hurdle.
After 18 seasons, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) are finally the IPL winners. They won their fourth final against another club that had a fantastic IPL 2025 season but didn’t win any trophies.
The Punjab Kings (PBKS) didn’t win, but they will eventually.
Bowlers winning a game 190-184 is proof that T20 is getting better.
After they were sent in to bat, PBKS did a fantastic job of keeping RCB to 190. The RCB bowlers, on the other hand, did even better. Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Yash Dayal, who have all won IPL titles with different teams, utilized their expertise and know-how to excel on the unusual Ahmedabad surface.
The margin of victory was only six runs, which demonstrated how evenly matched these two teams have been all season, but it was also misleading.
Shashank Singh struck Josh Hazlewood for 6, 4, 6, and 6 to end the match and the season. He completed with an unbeaten 30-ball 61.
However, those hits arrived slightly too late. PBKS needed 29 runs to win, but Hazlewood’s two consecutive dot balls effectively ended the game mathematically.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru For the 18th time, No. 18 found success.
Everyone was looking at one man at the finish, the one who had scored 18 runs. Virat Kohli’s 43 in this game, like his innings in last year’s T20 World Cup final, seemed like it belonged to a different time. It was too safe and likely to set his team a low total.
But there were signs throughout his knock that the wicket wasn’t the kind of pitch that Ahmedabad has been using a lot this season, when 196 was the fewest first-innings total in eight games.
He had a difficult time hitting the ball with his pull stroke since the PBKS seamers made the ball bounce like a tennis ball when they bowled onto the pitch.
Still, a goal of 191 looked too low for a PBKS team that had scored 204 with one over to spare at the same field two days before.
But this pitch was different, and it didn’t get any easier in the second inning.
Two of PBKS’s best batters outdid Kohli’s struggles: Kohli made 43 runs off 35 balls, while Prabhsimran Singh and Nehal Wadhera hit 41 runs off 40 balls.
Krunal bends one more final to his will.
Krunal has won three IPL titles with the Mumbai Indians (MI) and was named Player of the Match in one of them. He received that award for his outstanding batting performance.
He came in to bat during the 18th over and scored four runs before getting out. This time, he was responsible for the game with the ball.
The game was tied when he came in. At the end of their powerplay, PBKS was 52 for one, and RCB was 55 for one at the same time.
The fastball had the right speed and turn to make it hard for Krunal to get in line, and it had most of the things that made him so hard to hit in his first over.
He bowled fast and into the pitch, either angling the ball into the right-handers’ leg stump to make them feel cramped or shooting it wide of the off stump to give the sweeper cover a single that they didn’t want. This over only got three runs.
In his next over, he showed off a new skill: he could tell what the batter was going to do and change his speed quickly.
Krunal, who usually runs at 98 to 101 kph, dangled an 80 kph ball beyond Prabhsimran’s line of sight as he charged at him. Prabhsimran twisted the catch to the tip.
PBKS loses Iyer and Inglis at the wrong times.
Return to the date of November 19, 2023. Shreyas Iyer had been playing quite well throughout the ODI World Cup, and his innings in India’s semi-final win was crucial.
Then, in the final, a back-of-a-length delivery caught him early and behind.
The same thing happened again. He had jabbed at Pat Cummins two years ago, but this time he hit a top edge on a slice through point off Romario Shepherd.
The outcome was a significant change in the game, with PBKS needing 112 runs from 62 balls to win.
They still had a good chance, though, since they had many good batsmen, and Josh Inglis was playing well.
Josh Inglis was mastering the pull shot, despite the unpredictable nature of the short or shortish ball on this field. He hit one four and four sixes and scored 33 runs off 10 pulls, both fast and slow.
At 39 years old, he attempted to step out and hit Krunal over long-on, but he lacked the strength or height needed to execute the shot. It looked like it was all over at that time, when PBKS needed 93 out of 47.
Shashank couldn’t make up for his mistakes in time.
Shashank started his season on the same ground and hammered five fours in the last over, which is now famous. His captain, who was on 97, didn’t get to bat.
He finished the match with another outstanding performance, keeping PBKS in the game despite the increasing required rate.
He blasted Hazlewood for two sixes in the 16th over, which kept the equation possible: 55 off 24.
The player refused singles and maintained the strike throughout the 19th over, despite the fact that the other PBKS batters and genuine all-rounders were already back in the pavilion. He smashed Bhuvneshwar for a six and a four to raise the score to 29 off the last six balls.
It wasn’t meant to happen, but the explosion at the end of the match highlighted how much closer PBKS could have been if things had gone a little differently.
Jitesh is crucial.
For most of their innings, it wasn’t easy to discern whether RCB was progressing too slowly on a flat pitch or establishing a solid base on a slow one.
While Kohli was dominating at one end, his top-order teammates were being dismissed just as they appeared poised for a significant score.
Phil Salt, Rajat Patidar, and Liam Livingstone were dismissed during the match. While Kohli was excelling at one end, his top-order teammates were being dismissed just as they appeared poised to score a significant amount.
Kyle Jamieson got all three out with the slower leg cutter, either making it die on the batter from lesser lengths or dipping in a way that made him feel uneasy when he went full.
Jamieson, Azmatullah Omarzai, and Vijaykumar Vyshak all hit a substantial length, and Royal Challengers Bengaluru couldn’t figure out how to attack that length until Jitesh Sharma came in.
His 24 runs off 10 balls were crucial. He hit a flat-batted six over cover when he opened up all of his stumps to make room, and he hit a scooped six over his head while facing the bowler, Jamieson.
Jitesh’s innings made it look like RCB would score more than 200. Vyshak, on the other hand, stopped them from reaching their goals.
Who allowed Jitesh to go after he gave up only five runs in the 18th over? And who let Arshdeep Singh go? Who found the reverse swing that let him go full and attack the stumps in the last over? PBKS only lost five runs as a result of this.