During the opening match of IPL 2026 between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Sunrisers Hyderabad, Virat Kohli dropped a simple catch, but later made amends by taking a catch from the same batsman.The drop came in Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s 18th over when SRH batsman Aniket Verma mistimed a shot. Kohli runs to long-on but the ball slips from his hands and brushes his thigh before falling. Kohli looked shocked, while actor and Kohli’s wife Anushka Sharma in the stands reacted with laughter. Later, Kohli completed the catch to dismiss Aniket.In the match, SRH’s stand-in captain Ishan Kishan scored 80 runs off 38 balls and Sunrisers Hyderabad scored 201 runs for nine wickets. His innings included eight fours and five sixes and he shared a 97-run partnership for the fourth wicket with Henrik Klaasen, who scored 31 runs.
RCB captain Rajat Patidar chose to bowl first on a pitch that had not hosted top-level cricket for nearly 10 months. The decision proved correct as Jacob Duffy returned figures of 3 for 22 in four overs. The fast bowler used bounce effectively, causing trouble for the top order.Abhishek Sharma struggled to score freely and was dismissed for 7 after attempting a pull shot. RCB had earlier tried a catch-out appeal against him in the first over, but it was unsuccessful.Travis Head and Nitish Kumar Reddy also fell attempting pull shots against Duffy as SRH slumped to 29 for three in 4.2 overs. At the end of the powerplay, their score reached 49 for three.Kishan overcame the early setbacks to complete his half-century with a boundary off Suyash Sharma in 27 balls. He attacked Abhinandan Singh with a sequence of 6, 4, 6 and later hit two sixes in one over of Krunal Pandya.He reached 80 with a shot to third man off Abhinandan, but was out soon after, caught by Phil Salt near deep backward point.His wicket in the last overs slowed down SRH. Aniket Verma scored 43 off 19 balls followed by Kohli’s dismissal for 26, but the team added just 59 runs in the last five overs.In reply, defending champions RCB completed the chase in just 15.4 overs. Devdutt Padikal scored a 26-ball 61, Kohli made an unbeaten 38-ball 69, and Rajat Patidar scored a 12-ball 31 as RCB cruised to a six-wicket win.
