Royal Challengers Bengaluru batter Tim David brought out a Shikhar Dhawan-like celebration after completing Azmatullah Omarzai’s catch. The defending champions visited the HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala to
lock horns with the Punjab-based franchise in a must-win game for the Shreyas Iyer-led side. The Jitesh Sharma-led side put up a competitive total of 222 with the loss of four wickets after being asked to bat first.
In return, Punjab Kings got off to a poor start and were reduced to 49 with the loss of three wickets within powerplay. Their top batters including Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh and Shreyas Iyer were back in the hut at below par scores of 0, 2, and 1 run, respectively. While the middle and lower-batting order pushed itself, all the effort went into vain. On the last ball of the PBKS’ innings, Tim David completed an easy catch to send back Azmatullah Omarzai at 14 runs and restrict them at 199 with the loss of eight wickets.
After completing the catch, David brought out the ‘Thigh-five’ catch, famously called the ‘Shikhar Dhawan’ celebration to mark the win as well as RCB’s IPL 2026 playoffs qualification.
Batters dominate HPCA Stadium to guide RCB to their third straight win
Things didn’t start too well for RCB in the game. After losing the toss, they were asked to bat first. Though it wouldn’t have affected much, the Gold and Red Army suffered their first setback in the form of Jacob Bethell. He was forced to walk back at 11 runs in 7 deliveries. But this is when, former skipper Virat Kohli came to the rescue and guided momentum for the side.
Kohli came up with his 67th IPL fifty and put 58 runs in 37 balls followed by Devdutt Padikkal’s 25-ball 45. Not only this, but Venkatesh Iyer’s unbeaten 73 run and Tim David’s 28-run cameo pushed the team beyond the 200-run total and post 222 runs with the loss of four wickets. As the defending champions became the first team to qualify for the playoffs this season, RCB’s stand-in captain, Jitesh Sharma credited the batters for the same.
In the post-win ceremony, he said, “We know what we want to do on this wicket because we batted on that and the batters had given very good feedback on what was working on that wicket. So we planned particularly for particular batsmen and we were executing that properly.” RCB now has 18 points from nine wins in 13 games.
