IPL 2026: RCB Hosts MI in Raipur After a Decade
Big picture: Lots at stake for both teams
Royal Challengers Bengaluru knew coming into IPL 2026 that they would find a new home in Raipur, at a ground that hasn’t hosted a single IPL game in ten years. Initially, though, it was for all seven games. Later on, it was crunched down to two. The first comes at a tricky time.
After they slipped in their banana-peel clash against Lucknow Super Giants, they have lost hold of a top-two spot on the points table. Moreover, Josh Hazlewood has gone at economy rates of 12.25 and 14 in his last two games, and Jacob Bethell has scored only 43 runs in four innings.
Form guide
Royal Challengers Bengaluru LLWWL (last five games, most recent first)
Mumbai Indians WLLLW
Key question
Team news: Suryakumar available, Hardik in doubt
As mentioned earlier, Salt won’t be available. So RCB will likely go with an unchanged side.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (probable) 1 Virat Kohli, 2 Jacob Bethell, 3 Devdutt Padikkal, 4 Rajat Patidar (capt), 5 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 6 Tim David, 7 Romario Shepherd, 8 Krunal Pandya, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Josh Hazlewood, 11 Suyash Sharma, 12 Rasikh Salam
Both Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya have joined the squad. Pandya had missed the last game due to back spasms and wasn’t part of the optional nets on Friday. He will continue to be assessed.
Mumbai Indians (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Ryan Rickelton (wk), 3 Naman Dhir, 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Tilak Varma, 6 Hardik Pandya (capt)/Corbin Bosch, 7 Robin Minz/Raj Bawa, 8 Deepak Chahar, 9 Trent Boult, 10 AM Ghazanfar, 11 Jasprit Bumrah, 12 Raghu Sharma
In the spotlight: Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ryan Rickelton
In a season where powerplay maximisation is at the top of teams’ minds, Bhuvneshwar Kumar‘s effectiveness with the new ball has been a massive asset. RCB’s bowling has fared better when he has done well early on. He has five three-fors and nine powerplay wickets in ten games this season.
After a few single-digit scores and getting dropped, Ryan Rickelton has returned with a bang. He is fresh off a match-winning 83 not out and made his career-best of 123 not out two games ago. Both of them came at strike rates above 200.
Pitch and conditions
The last IPL game in Raipur was played in 2016, and only two T20Is have been played here since January 2018. So there are a lot of unknowns for the teams to contend with. The upside is that there will be a fresh pitch. While the pitches in Raipur are traditionally slow, this one is expected to be good for batting. That could be challenged by the rains that pelted on Saturday. Sunday’s weather is set to be fair with the temperature going up to 40 degrees during the day and 24 degrees at night.
Stats and trivia
- This will be MI’s first game in Raipur.
- Jitesh averages 8.00 from eight innings.
- Rickelton’s record splits dramatically by location. At home, he has averaged 54.5 and strikes at 178.7 this season; away, those numbers drop to 22.3 and 147.7.
