With Rajat Patidar as the Captain, discover the best predicted playing 11 for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for IPL 2026. 

Strong, stronger, strongest! That’s how the Royal Challenger Bengaluru’s 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 the Captain post 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 were still able to make good inroads in the IPL 2026 Mini Auction. The team acquired the services of Venkatesh Iyer, Jacob Duffy, Jordan Cox, Mangesh Yadav, etc., among quality players, which makes their squad the strongest they have seen in the history of the Indian Premier League.

RCB had retained 17 players ahead of the IPL 2026 Mini Auction. Alongside a strong core, the team added 8 more players. But will the addition of new players to the squad make any changes in their title-winning playing 11 from IPL 2025? Well, let’s analyse the official squad as shown below, look at the strengths ad weaknesses of the team, and find out the best predicted Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) playing 11 for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026. 

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) Complete Squad List for IPL 2026 Post Auction

Batters

• Devdutt Padikkal
• Rajat Patidar (C)
• Tim David (OS)
• Virat Kohli
• Satvik Deswal

WKs

• Jitesh Sharma
• Phil Salt (OS)
• Jordan Cox (OS)

All-rounders

• Jacob Bethell (OS)
• Krunal Pandya
• Romario Shephard (OS)
• Swapnil Singh
• Venkatesh Iyer
• Mangesh Yadav
• Vicky Ostwal
• Vihaan Malhotra
• Kanishk Chouhan

Bowlers

• Abhinandan Singh
• Bhuvneshwar Kumar
• Josh Hazlewood (OS)
• Nuwan Thushara (OS)
• Rasikh Dar
• Suyash Sharma
• Yash Dayal
• Jacob Duffy (OS)

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) Best Playing 11 Revealed

Batting-Lineup

If we talk about the opening combination, RCB might once again stick to their IPL 2025 opening combination of Virat Kohli and Phil Salt. Both Virat and Salt played with amazing intent last year, and the results were also encouraging. Both are strong players, and arguably the best opening pair in the competition. Also, with Salt not a part of the England Test squad, it helps RCB a lot, as his availability will not be in question.

While the opening combination is fixed, number 3 is where there could be a decisive change. Devdutt Padikkal had been playing at his position for RCB last year. But with Venkatesh Iyer being added, it makes more sense to switch to a more experienced number 3 in the form of Venkatesh Iyer. Iyer is a proven match-winner at number 3 for KKR; however, his position was unthoughtfully experimented with in KKR last year, and as a result, his performance was affected. But for RCB, number 3 shall suit him, and add to it the flat wickets of Chinnaswamy. 

With a solid top 3, the rest of the batting lineup should be similar to what we had seen in IPL 2025. So, Captain Rajat Patidar should play a sheet anchor key role at the number 4 position. Jitesh Sharma should play at the number 5 position. Tim David shall continue with his finishing duties at the number 6 position. Whereas Romario Shephard and Krunal Pandya at 7 and 8 should manage the finishing duties for the RCB team.

Bowling Lineup

With a strong batting lineup, the next natural question is that of the bowling lineup. The impact player rule gives not only batting depth to the team, but also an additional bowling option. So, with the top 8 sorted, the following 4 should be pure bowlers. The bowling lineup shall 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. Whereas Suyash Sharma shall once again lead the spin attack, with support from Krunal Pandya.

Overall, the RCB playing 11 looks quite strong, and the only major weakness in their lineup is that of spin bowling. While Suyash is definitely talented, he lacks experience, and he is also not in the category of spinners to watch out for. Similarly, Yash Dayal is a good pacer. Not outstanding, who is also among the Indian team probables. So, these two are weak links still in the squad, but one can say, hey, they still won the IPL 2025 with almost the same squad. But that doesn’t mean the squad can’t have shortcomings. 

When we talk about the backups of the RCB team, they once again did a brilliant job in terms of threading all the gaps they could think of. So, they have Devdutt Padikkal as the potential backup for Venkatesh Iyer. Jacob Bethell is the backup for Phil Salt. Jordon Cox as the backup for Romario Shephard. Magesh Yadav as the backup for Yash Dayal, and Swapnil Singh as the backup for Krunal Pandya. Finally, Nuwan Thushara and Jacob Duffy as the backup for Josh Hazlewood. This is a fantastic backup squad one can have. 

IPL 2026 Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) Best Predicted Playing 11

1. Virat Kohli
2. Phil Salt
3. Venkatesh Iyer
4. Rajat Patidar (c)
5. Jitesh Sharma (wk)
6. Tim David 
7. Romario Shephard
8. Krunal Pandya
9. Bhuvneshwar Kumar
10. Josh Hazlewood 
11. Yash Dayal
12. Suyash Sharma – Impact Player

So, that’s about the strongest playing 11 for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for IPL 2026. The RCB squad looks quite strong compared to most of the teams, and barring the Mumbai Indians, they might not have much difficulty winning the matches. It’s an ideal squad for title defence, and if RCB can defend the title, they will be the only third team alongside CSK (2010 and 2011) and Mumbai Indians (2010 & 2020) to achieve this feat.

Thanks for reading! What’s your strongest playing 11 for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for IPL 2025? Please email your thoughts to business@cricalytics.com

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