Kohli and RCB are finally IPL champions

Royal Challengers Bengaluru 190 for 9 (Kohli 43, Arshdeep 3-40, Jamieson 3-48) beat Punjab Kings 184 for 7 (Shashank 61*, Inglis 39, Krunal 2-17, Bhuvneshwar 2-38) by six runs

Eighteen years spent in the belief that ee sala cup namde (this year the cup is ours), 17 of them ending in wretched disappointment for one of the IPL's biggest and most passionate fan bases, three of them ending with defeat at the final hurdle.

Eighteen seasons in, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) are finally IPL champions. Their victory in their fourth final came at the expense of another trophy-less team that had put together a heartwarming IPL 2025 campaign; it wasn't to be for Punjab Kings (PBKS), but their time will surely come too.

It's a sign of how far T20 has come that 190 beating 184 was a bowler-dominated game. PBKS did brilliantly to restrict RCB to 190 after sending them in, but RCB's bowlers did even better, with Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Yash Dayal - who have all won IPL titles at other teams - bringing their experience and nous to play on an unusual Ahmedabad surface.

The margin of victory was narrow - six runs - and while it showed how closely matched these two teams have been over the season, it was also deceptive. Shashank Singh, who finished on an unbeaten 30-ball 61, hit Josh Hazlewood for 6, 4, 6, 6 to end the match and the season. But those hits came just a touch too late; PBKS went into the final over needing 29, and Hazlewood had started with a pair of dots that all but ended the contest mathematically.

18th time lucky for No. 18

At the end of it, all eyes were on one man, the man with 18 on his back. Like his innings in last year's T20 World Cup final, Virat Kohli's 43 in this game seemed at various points like it belonged to another era, too risk-averse, and likely to set his team a below-par total. But there were clues throughout his knock that this wasn't the sort of pitch that Ahmedabad has rolled out routinely this season, where 196 had been the smallest first-innings total in eight games. He had struggled especially to generate power with his pull shot, with the PBKS seamers generating tennis-ball bounce when they bowled into the pitch.

A target of 191, for all that, seemed too small for a PBKS line-up that had gunned down 204 with an over to spare at the same ground two days previously. But this pitch was different, and it didn't necessarily ease up through the second innings. Between them, two of PBKS' brightest batting talents outdid Kohli's struggles: where Kohli scored 43 off 35 balls, Prabhsimran Singh and Nehal Wadhera scored 41 off 40 between them.

Krunal bends another final to his will

Krunal has won three IPL titles with Mumbai Indians (MI), and was Player of the Match in one of them. That was for what he did with the bat.

This time, he came in to bat in the 18th over and holed out for 4 off 5. This time, he turned the match with the ball.

The final was on a knife edge when he came on. PBKS were 52 for 1 at the end of their powerplay; RCB had been 55 for 1 at the same stage.

Krunal's first over contained most of the ingredients that made him so difficult to hit on this pitch, which had just enough natural variation of pace and turn to make him hard to line up. He bowled fast and into the pitch, either angling the ball into the right-handers' leg stump and cramping them for room or firing it wide of off stump to offer a single to sweeper cover that they didn't particularly want. Only three runs came off this over.

His next over brought in another dimension: the ability to spot the batter's intentions and change his pace at the last moment. Seeing the struggling Prabhsimran charge at him, Krunal - whose usual pace hovers in the 98-101kph range - dangled an 80kph ball outside his eyeline. Wrenched out of shape, Prabhsimran skewed a catch to point.

Iyer and Inglis fall at the wrong times for PBKS

Go back to November 19, 2023. Shreyas Iyer had been in red-hot form through that ODI World Cup, and had played the innings of India's semi-final win. Then, in the final, he had fallen early, caught behind off a back-of-a-length delivery.

The same script played out all over again now, more or less. Where he had poked uncertainly at Pat Cummins two years ago, he top-edged an attempted slash through point, off Romario Shepherd. It was a massive inflection point in this game, leaving PBKS needing 112 off 62 balls.

They were still in with more than a shout, though, because of their batting depth, and because Josh Inglis was playing a blinder. On this pitch where the short or shortish ball wasn't coming onto the bat at anything like a predictable pace or height, he was playing the pull like a man in a dream. He scored 33 off 10 pulls, against pace and spin, hitting one four and four sixes.

At 39, however, he looked to step out and launch Krunal over long-on, and didn't quite find either the power or elevation to do so. At that point, with PBKS needing 93 off 47, it seemed all but over.