The Royal Challengers Bengaluru powered their way to their fourth Indian Premier League final after they swept aside Punjab Kings in the Qualifier 1 game on Thursday.
PBKS topped the table in the IPL 2025 league stage but were no match for a rampant RCB in Mullanpur, as RCB knocked off their target of 102 with 8 wickets and 60 balls to spare.
RCB in elite company
The Bengaluru franchise equalled defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders’s record of reaching four IPL finals. They join an elite list of teams with the most IPL final appearances. The list of teams with the most appearances in the summit clash are:
Chennai Super Kings – 10 finals (5 wins)
Mumbai Indians – 6 finals (5 wins)
Kolkata Knight Riders – 4 finals (3 wins)
Royal Challengers Bengaluru – 4 finals (0 wins)
The Bengaluru side are on the cusp of history, as they have never won an IPL title in the 17 editions of the competition that have taken place so far.
Final hurdles
They have made three appearances in the summit clash and have failed to win each one of them.
They first reached the IPL final in 2009 at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa, where they met the now defunct Deccan Chargers. This was a final of the previous IPL season’s bottom two teams.
DC batted first and reached 143/6 powered by a Herschelle Gibbs half century (53), who was ably supported by Andrew Symonds (33 of 21) and a young Rohit Sharma (24 of 23).
RCB, in response, could muster only 137 as they fell short by 7 runs in the final. Virat Kohli scored only 7 in the second innings as DC ran out winners.
RCB’s second IPL final was at the MA Chidambaram stadium against Chennai Super Kings.
Here too RCB batted second as CSK posted a mammoth 205/5. RCB meekly surrendered as they ended up with just 147/8, gifting the Chennai side their second consecutive title.
The Bengaluru side’s third final appearance came in 2016 at their home ground M Chinnaswamy stadium. They met the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the summit clash and batted second for the third time in a row in an IPL final.
SRH posted an imposing 208/7 and here too RCB failed to chase the target on hand. However, they did put up a better fight than the last time around as they scored 200/7 in their 20 overs.
It remains to be seen who RCB will face in the IPL 2025 final. Regardless of who they face, the Bengaluru franchise would hope it will be ‘fourth time lucky’ as they hope to finally break the final curse.
