With Rajat Patidar as captain, discover the best predicted playing 11s for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for IPL 2026.
Strong, stronger, strongest! For example, the Royal Challenger Bengaluru squad went from 2024 to 2026. The pre-IPL Mega Auction squad in 2024 was a strong squad for RCB, with Faf du Plessis at the helm. But the injection of Rajat Patidar as captain after the mega auction in 2025 made the squad stronger, and the team was also able to win their first-ever Indian Premier League title under his leadership.
With a strong squad in 2025, the RCB team also retained a strong core for IPL 2026. While the retained squad was enough to defend the trophy, RCB was still able to make good progress in the IPL 2026 Mini Auction. The team acquired the services of Venkatesh Iyer, Jacob Duffy, Jordan Cox, Mangesh Yadav, etc., among quality players, making their squad the strongest they have ever seen in the history of the Indian Premier League.
RCB had retained 17 players ahead of the IPL 2026 Mini Auction. In addition to a strong core, the team has added 8 more players. But will the addition of new players to the squad bring about any change in their title-winning Game 11 from IPL 2025? Let’s analyze the official squad as shown below, look at the team’s strengths and weaknesses and find out which Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) are playing in the eleven for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) complete squad list for IPL 2026 postal auction
Batters
- Devdutt Padikkal
- Rajat Patidar (C)
- Tim David (OS)
- Virat Kohli
- Satvik Deswal
World Cups
- Jitesh Sharma
- Phil Zout (OS)
- Jordan Cox (OS)
All-rounders
- Jacob Bethell (OS)
- Krunal Pandya
- Romario Shephard (OS)
- Swapnil Singh
- Venkatesh Iyer
- Mangesh Yadav
- Vicky Ostwal
- I hate Malhotra
- Kanishk Chouhan
Bowlers
- Abhinandan Singh
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar
- Josh Hazlewood (OS)
- Nine Dushara (OS)
- Rasik Dar
- Suyash Sharma
- Yasj Dayal
- Jacob Duffy (OS)
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) 11 best players revealed
Batting lineup
Talking about the opening combination, RCB could once again stick with their IPL 2025 opening combination of Virat Kohli and Phil Salt. Both Virat and Salt played with great intentions last year, and the results were also encouraging. Both are strong players and perhaps the best opening pair in the league. Salt not being part of the England Test squad also helps RCB immensely as his availability is not in question.
Although the opening combination is fixed, number 3 is where a decisive change can occur. Devdutt Padikkal played his position for RCB last year. But with the addition of Venkatesh Iyer, it makes more sense to move to a more experienced number 3 in the form of Venkatesh Iyer. Iyer is a proven match-winner at number 3 for KKR; However, last year, his position was thoughtlessly experimented with in KKR, impacting his performance. But for RCB, number 3 will suit him, and add to that the flat wickets of Chinnaswamy.
With a solid top 3, the rest of the batting line-up should be similar to what we had seen in IPL 2025. So, captain Rajat Patidar should play a key role at the number 4 position. Jitesh Sharma should play at the number 5 position. Tim David will continue his finishing duties in the number 6 position. While Romario Shephard and Krunal Pandya at 7 and 8 should handle the finishing duties for the RCB team.
Bowling setup
With a strong batting line-up, the next natural question is that of the bowling line-up. The impact player rule not only gives the team batting depth but also an additional bowling option. So once the top 8 are sorted, the next 4 should be pure bowlers. The bowling line-up will be in sync with what we had in IPL 2025, so we should see Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood and Yash Dayal as the leading pacers in the side. While Suyash Sharma will once again lead the spin attack, with support from Krunal Pandya.
Overall, the RCB playing 11 look quite strong, and the only major weakness in their line-up is that of spin bowling. While Suyash is definitely talented, he lacks experience, and he also doesn’t belong to the category of spinners you should look out for. Similarly, Yash Dayal is a good pacer. Not outstanding, who is also among the likely players for the Indian team. So these two are still weak links in the team, but you can say, hey, they still won the IPL 2025 with almost the same team. But that doesn’t mean the team can’t have shortcomings.
If we talk about the backups of the RCB team, they once again did a brilliant job in plugging all the holes they could think of. So, they have Devdutt Padikkal as a potential backup for Venkatesh Iyer. Jacob Bethell is the backup for Phil Salt. Jordon Cox as backup for Romario Shephard. Magesh Yadav as backup for Yash Dayal and Swapnil Singh as backup for Krunal Pandya. Finally, Nuwan Alsohara and Jacob Duffy as backup for Josh Hazlewood. This is a great backup team to have.
- Virat Kohli
- Phil Salt
- Venkatesh Iyer
- Rajat Patidar (c)
- JItesh Sharma (wk)
- Tim David
- Romario Shephard
- Krunal Pandya
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar
- Josh Hazlewood
- Yasj Dayal
- Suyash Sharma – Impact player
So that’s about Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB)’s strongest players for IPL 2026. The RCB squad looks quite strong compared to most teams, and apart from Mumbai Indians, they might not have much trouble winning the matches. They are an ideal team for title defense, and if RCB can defend the title, they will be the only third team besides CSK (2010 and 2011) and Mumbai Indians (2010 and 2020) to achieve the feat.
Thanks for reading! What do you play the strongest for when you play 11? Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for IPL 2025? Send your opinion by email to business@cricalytics.com
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