Award Winners: “If we execute our plans, we are the best team in the competition.” These words from Virat Kohli echoed around the gigantic Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad after he marshaled Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) chase in the IPL 2026 final with a sublime knock of 75* (42) as defending champions RCB beat Gujarat Titans (GT) to seal their second IPL trophy.
RCB proved Kohli’s words to the tee: RCB finished at the top of the points table in the league stage and then produced two thumping victories over Gujarat in Qualifier 1 and the final.
RCB successfully defended their title, becoming the third team in IPL history to win back-to-back trophies. Earlier, Chennai Super Kings (2010, 2011) and Mumbai Indians (2019, 2020) had attained this feat.
Patidar won the toss and opted to field first. The RCB bowlers assessed the pitch perfectly and hit the back-of-length and short length to dismiss the GT openers, Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan, both of whom with over 700 runs this season, inside four overs.
Nishant Sindhu and Jos Buttler tried rebuilding but were sent packing for 20 and 19 runs, respectively. GT’s batting today was carried by Washington Sundar, who scored 50 runs off 37 balls, but with little support from the other end. Eventually, GT finished with an under-par total of 155.
While the tackiness on the pitch during GT’s innings gradually settled down when RCB batted, GT pacers didn’t help themselves either with awry lines and lengths, allowing Kohli and Venkatesh Iyer to get off to a blazing opening stand of 62(27), effectively killing the game.
With such a strong foundation laid, even as RCB lost wickets thereafter, it didn’t hurt much, as the required rate had come down to under 6 rpo and Kohli held his fort. He hit the winning runs with a meaty hit down the ground, a six over long on, as his arc in the IPL burned brighter.
Kohli, who had scored 657 runs last season, ended up with 675 runs in IPL 2026 at a strike rate of 165, a significant improvement on his strike rate of 144 in IPL 2025.
Several awards were handed out in the post-match presentation ceremony after the IPL final. Check them out here.
List Of All Award Winners After IPL 2026 Final In Post-Match Presentation Ceremony:
- Super Striker of the Final – Venkatesh Iyer (32 off 16 balls, strike rate of 200)
- Super Sixes in the Final – Virat Kohli (3 sixes)
- Most Fours in the Final – Virat Kohli (9 fours)
- Most Dot Balls in the final – Bhuvneshwar Kumar (11 dot balls)
- Player of the Match in the final – Virat Kohli (75* runs off 42 balls)
- Emerging Player of the Season IPL 2026 – Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (776 runs)
- Super Striker of the season – Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (Strike rate of 237)
- Super Sixes of the season – Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (72 sixes)
- Most Fours of the season – Sai Sudharsan (75 fours)
- Most Dot Balls of the season – Mohammed Siraj (172 dot balls)
- Catch of the season – Manish Panday (for catch of Tim David)
- Fairplay Award of the season – Punjab Kings
- Orange Cap – Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (776 runs)
- Purple Cap – Kagiso Rabada (29 wickets)
- Most Valuable Player / Player of the Tournament – Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (436.5 MVP Points)
- IPL 2026 Winners – RCB
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