Some chases feel tense throughout. This one felt over about twenty minutes in and never really came back. Shubman Gill’s stunning 104 off 53 balls powered Gujarat Titans to a seven-wicket win over Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2026. Qualifier 2. GT will now face RCB in the final. Full match report here.
Gujarat Titans needed 215 to beat Rajasthan Royals in Qualifier 2 and reach the IPL 2026 final. They got there with eight balls remaining. Seven wickets in hand. And a captain’s hundred so dominant that the Reddit match thread described it, accurately, as “167 off 77 balls, zero wickets — Gill and Sudharsan turned a Qualifier into a training session.”
The IPL 2026 final will be Gujarat Titans vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. And Shubman Gill is arriving at that final in the form of his life. While RCB players will also be fully ready for the final challenge in Ahmedabad.
Shubman Gill Leads From the Front
Gujarat had lost Qualifier 1 to RCB. That defeat meant the longer path — win the Eliminator winner or go home. It’s the kind of context that either shrinks a player or reveals them. Gill was revealed.
104 runs from 53 balls. Century reached in 47 deliveries. The attacking intent was established inside the first over and never wavered. He read the Rajasthan bowling plan early and dismantled it piece by piece — pace and spin both treated with the same aggressive confidence, the required rate controlled from the opening powerplay without ever needing to take on unnecessary risk.
The boundaries came in clusters. The sixes were placed rather than muscled. This was organized violence against the bowling, the kind of innings that doesn’t feel like calculated risk because the execution is good enough that most of the risk disappears.
Player of the Match was never in question.
Sai Sudharsan Provides Perfect Support
The number that puts everything in context: 167 runs for the first wicket. Off 77 balls.
Sai Sudharsan scored 58 from 32 and played exactly the innings that GT needed alongside Gill — aggressive enough to maintain scoring pressure from both ends, smart enough not to steal strike from a captain who was in the zone.
Their partnership in the powerplay — 69 runs — immediately answered the question of what kind of chase this was going to be. Rajasthan’s bowlers needed early wickets and the chance to build pressure through dot balls. They got neither. By the time the powerplay ended, the match was already tilting heavily toward Gujarat.
When Sudharsan was finally dismissed, the game was effectively done. Rahul Tewatia confirmed it with a six in the final overs, finishing proceedings with the kind of authority that reflects a team that never doubted itself.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi Shines Despite Rajasthan Royals’ Defeat
This section exists because it has to. Rajasthan Royals lost. But Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who is fifteen years old, scored 96 runs off 47 balls and almost made the total irrelevant.
Eight fours. Seven sixes. Against a bowling attack that had beaten RCB in the league stage. He missed his century by four runs, which will sting, but what won’t sting is the response he received. Kumar Sangakkara has publicly backed him for an India call-up. His own captain Riyan Parag put it simply: “He doesn’t slog. These are quality cricket shots.”
That observation is what separates genuinely exciting young talent from merely powerful hitters. Sooryavanshi isn’t clearing the fence through sheer strength — he’s reading the ball early, picking his lengths, and playing cricket shots that happen to go very far. At fifteen. Under playoff pressure.
The IPL has produced young stars before. Something about Sooryavanshi suggests this is different.
Rajasthan Royals Recover After Early Trouble
The innings could have collapsed. Yashasvi Jaiswal went for one. Dhruv Jurel followed cheaply. For a moment, Rajasthan were teetering.
Sooryavanshi didn’t teethe. He kept attacking, kept finding boundaries, kept the innings moving at a pace that prevented Gujarat from bowling to a defensive field. Ravindra Jadeja’s unbeaten 45 provided the experience and composure alongside him in the middle overs, and Donovan Ferreira’s extraordinary cameo — 38 not out from just 11 balls — pushed the total past 214.
At that point, 215 looked genuinely competitive. A young gun had batted brilliantly, a veteran had steadied things, and a late fireman had found the boundary at will. Rajasthan had done their job.
Gujarat just did theirs better.
Gujarat Titans Dominate the Chase
The chase was settled in the powerplay. That sounds like a reductive summary but it’s also just accurate. 69 runs in the first six overs told Rajasthan exactly what kind of evening this was going to be.
The middle overs were academic. Gujarat’s batters continued finding boundaries. Rajasthan’s bowlers continued searching for the breakthrough that would change the match’s momentum. It never came.
After the opening partnership was finally broken, the chase was so comfortable that the remaining overs felt like a formality. A good formality — Tewatia’s finishing six was properly celebrated — but a formality nonetheless.
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IPL 2026 Final Set for Blockbuster Showdown
Gujarat Titans versus Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Ahmedabad. May 31.
RCB beat GT in Qualifier 1. GT have a score to settle. RCB have their own reasons to believe — they finished top of the table, they’ve been the most consistent side across the season, and they have the home crowd advantage of a league that has been talking about them winning a title for longer than most supporters can comfortably remember.
Gujarat arrive with momentum, with Gill in magnificent form, with the specific psychological edge of knowing they can beat this bowling attack.
This is a proper final. Two teams that have earned their places, meeting on the biggest stage, with something genuinely meaningful at stake for both sides.
For Rajasthan, the season ends with disappointment and promise in equal measure. The disappointment is the result. The promise is fifteen years old and already being backed for international selection.
Cricket, occasionally, does produce stories this good.