Best Predicted Playing XI of All 10 Teams

The IPL 2026 season is complete, and this ranking looks back at what actually happened rather than guessing what might. Royal Challengers Bengaluru defended their title by beating Gujarat Titans by five wickets in the final at Ahmedabad on 31 May 2026, with Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 75 sealing back-to-back championships. Below, all ten teams are ranked by their final league position and playoff outcome, and each team’s best playing XI from the completed season is set out, built from the players on its 2026 squad and weighted toward the performers who delivered.

Final IPL 2026 Standings

Position	Team	Matches	Won	Lost	No Result	Points	Net Run Rate
1	Royal Challengers Bengaluru	14	9	5	0	18	+0.783
2	Gujarat Titans	14	9	5	0	18	+0.695
3	Sunrisers Hyderabad	14	9	5	0	18	+0.524
4	Rajasthan Royals	14	8	6	0	16	+0.189
5	Punjab Kings	14	7	6	1	15	+0.309
6	Delhi Capitals	14	7	7	0	14	-0.651
7	Kolkata Knight Riders	14	6	7	1	13	-0.147
8	Chennai Super Kings	14	6	8	0	12	-0.345
9	Mumbai Indians	14	4	10	0	8	-0.584
10	Lucknow Super Giants	14	4	10	0	8	-0.740

How the Playoffs Finished

Three teams ended the league stage on 18 points, with Bengaluru topping the table on net run rate. The IPL 2026 schedule ran from 28 March to the final on 31 May. In Qualifier 1, Bengaluru beat Gujarat by 92 runs. In the Eliminator, Rajasthan Royals beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 47 runs. Gujarat then beat Rajasthan by seven wickets in Qualifier 2 to reach the final, where Bengaluru won by five wickets. Gujarat batted first in the final and made 155 for 8, with Washington Sundar’s unbeaten 50 from 37 balls the top score, while Rasikh Salam took 3 for 27 for Bengaluru. Kohli and Venkatesh Iyer put on 62 for the first wicket, and Kohli finished unbeaten on 75 from 42 balls to win Player of the Match.

Season Award Winners

Award	Winner	Detail
Orange Cap	Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (Rajasthan Royals)	776 runs from 16 innings at a strike rate of 237.30
Purple Cap	Kagiso Rabada (Gujarat Titans)	29 wickets from 17 matches
Most Valuable Player	Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (Rajasthan Royals)	436.55 MVP points
Highest individual score	KL Rahul (Delhi Capitals)	152 not out against Punjab Kings
Fair Play Award	Punjab Kings	Team award

1. Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Champions

Bengaluru finished first in the league stage and won the title for the second straight year, joining Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings as the only franchises to win back-to-back IPL titles. Rajat Patidar captained the side, and the season was built on Kohli’s 675 runs, Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s 28 wickets, and a bowling attack that delivered in the final.

Best XI: Phil Salt, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (captain), Tim David, Jitesh Sharma (wicketkeeper), Krunal Pandya, Romario Shepherd, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Rasikh Salam. Venkatesh Iyer opened alongside Kohli in the final and is the first reserve. The balance is the point: three frontline seamers, two spin options in Krunal and Suyash Sharma, and batting depth down to No. 8.

2. Gujarat Titans: Runners-Up

Gujarat matched Bengaluru on 18 points and reached the final, where they fell five wickets short. Shubman Gill captained the side and scored 732 runs, Sai Sudharsan added 722, and Kagiso Rabada’s 29 wickets won the Purple Cap. Rashid Khan took 21 wickets and Mohammed Siraj 19, giving Gujarat the deepest bowling group in the league.

Best XI: Shubman Gill (captain), Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler (wicketkeeper), Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Washington Sundar, Jason Holder, Rashid Khan, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna. Gill’s century in Qualifier 2 underlined how much of Gujarat’s season ran through their captain.

3. Sunrisers Hyderabad: Third

Hyderabad also finished on 18 points but lost the Eliminator to Rajasthan by 47 runs. Their batting was the most explosive in the league: Heinrich Klaasen scored 624 runs, Ishan Kishan 602, and Abhishek Sharma 563 at a strike rate above 200. Eshan Malinga took 20 wickets to lead the bowling.

Best XI: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Heinrich Klaasen (wicketkeeper), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Kamindu Mendis, Harshal Patel, Pat Cummins (captain), Eshan Malinga, Jaydev Unadkat, Sakib Hussain. Kishan stood in as interim captain while Cummins recovered from a back injury. The XI is built for pace and power, with three seam-bowling all-round options around Cummins.

4. Rajasthan Royals: Fourth

Rajasthan grabbed the last playoff spot with 16 points, won the Eliminator, then lost Qualifier 2 to Gujarat. Their season belonged to Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, whose 776 runs won both the Orange Cap and the Most Valuable Player award, and to Jofra Archer, whose 25 wickets put him third in the Purple Cap race.

Best XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Riyan Parag (captain), Dhruv Jurel (wicketkeeper), Shimron Hetmyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Jofra Archer, Sandeep Sharma, Tushar Deshpande, Brijesh Sharma. The top order carried the batting, while Archer and the two traded-in all-rounders, Jadeja and Curran, gave the side balance.

5. Punjab Kings: Fifth

Punjab missed the playoffs by a single point after a washout cost them a result. Shreyas Iyer captained the side and scored 498 runs, Prabhsimran Singh made 510, and Cooper Connolly added 491.

Best XI: Prabhsimran Singh (wicketkeeper), Priyansh Arya, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Cooper Connolly, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Azmatullah Omarzai, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, Xavier Bartlett. The strength is all-round depth: four genuine all-rounders allow five bowling options without weakening the batting. Punjab also won the Fair Play Award.

6. Delhi Capitals: Sixth

Delhi finished sixth with 14 points after an inconsistent campaign, but they owned the season’s most spectacular individual innings: KL Rahul’s unbeaten 152 from 67 balls against Punjab Kings, the highest score by an Indian batter in IPL history and his sixth IPL hundred. Rahul finished with 593 runs.

Best XI: KL Rahul (wicketkeeper), Abhishek Porel, Karun Nair, Tristan Stubbs, Ashutosh Sharma, Axar Patel (captain), Vipraj Nigam, Mitchell Starc, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar. The spin pair of Axar and Kuldeep gives the attack control in the middle overs.

7. Kolkata Knight Riders: Seventh

Kolkata ended seventh with 13 points, their season fading after a four-match winning run was ended by Bengaluru in Raipur. Angkrish Raghuvanshi scored 422 runs, Finn Allen hit a 47-ball hundred against Delhi, and Kartik Tyagi took 18 wickets. Sunil Narine’s 15 wickets at an economy rate of 6.65 remained among the best value in the league.

Best XI: Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Finn Allen, Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Rinku Singh, Cameron Green, Rovman Powell, Ramandeep Singh, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana, Kartik Tyagi. The twin-spin threat of Narine and Chakravarthy is the XI’s defining feature, with pace support from Harshit and Tyagi.

8. Chennai Super Kings: Eighth

Chennai endured another disappointing season, finishing eighth with 12 points. The bright spot was Sanju Samson, who joined the squad and became the only batter to score two centuries in the season: an unbeaten 115 against Delhi Capitals and 101 not out against Mumbai Indians. Anshul Kamboj took 21 wickets, the joint-fourth-highest tally in the league.

Best XI: Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), Ayush Mhatre, Sanju Samson, Dewald Brevis, Shivam Dube, MS Dhoni (wicketkeeper), Jamie Overton, Anshul Kamboj, Noor Ahmad, Khaleel Ahmed, Nathan Ellis. The XI leans on experience, with Samson and Brevis adding firepower around Gaikwad at the top.

9. Mumbai Indians: Ninth

Mumbai managed only four wins and finished ninth, a poor return for a squad full of stars. Yet they were the only franchise with three centurions in the season: Quinton de Kock’s unbeaten 112 against Punjab Kings, Tilak Varma’s 101 from 45 balls against Gujarat Titans, and Ryan Rickelton’s 123 from 55 balls against Sunrisers Hyderabad, which included the fastest century by a Mumbai batter, from 44 balls.

Best XI: Ryan Rickelton (wicketkeeper), Rohit Sharma, Will Jacks, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya (captain), Naman Dhir, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult. On paper this is one of the strongest XIs in the league.

10. Lucknow Super Giants: Tenth

Lucknow finished bottom with four wins and the worst net run rate in the league. Mitchell Marsh was their standout, scoring 563 runs including a 49-ball century against Bengaluru, the fastest hundred in the franchise’s history. Prince Yadav took 16 wickets to lead a young bowling group.

Best XI: Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Rishabh Pant (captain and wicketkeeper), Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Mohsin Khan, Prince Yadav, Digvesh Rathi. The batting had power, but the bowling lacked the experience to defend totals.

What the Ten Best XIs Show

Three patterns stand out from the completed season. First, the champion’s XI was the most balanced rather than the most star-studded: Bengaluru had no Orange or Purple Cap winner, but they had match-winners in every department and the best net run rate in the league. Second, the individual award winners all played for teams that finished in the top four, which shows how closely personal form and team success were linked in 2026. Third, several IPL records were set: for the first time in IPL history, all ten franchises produced at least one centurion in a single season, and the league stage finished with 13 centuries, a sign of how batting-friendly and top-heavy the season was.

The gap between top and bottom was wide: the top three each won nine matches and the bottom two four each, a gap that reflects squad depth more than luck.

Who won IPL 2026?

Royal Challengers Bengaluru won IPL 2026, beating Gujarat Titans by five wickets in the final at Ahmedabad on 31 May 2026. It was Bengaluru’s second consecutive title.

Who won the Orange Cap in IPL 2026?

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi of Rajasthan Royals won the Orange Cap with 776 runs from 16 innings at a strike rate of 237.30. He also won the Most Valuable Player award.

Who won the Purple Cap in IPL 2026?

Kagiso Rabada of Gujarat Titans won the Purple Cap with 29 wickets from 17 matches, one ahead of Bhuvneshwar Kumar of Bengaluru with 28.

Which team finished last in IPL 2026?

Lucknow Super Giants finished tenth with four wins from 14 matches and a net run rate of -0.740, behind Mumbai Indians on net run rate.

Did every team produce a centurion in IPL 2026?

Yes. For the first time in IPL history, all ten franchises produced at least one century in a single season, with 13 centuries scored in the league stage.

What was the highest individual score of IPL 2026?

KL Rahul’s unbeaten 152 from 67 balls for Delhi Capitals against Punjab Kings, the highest score by an Indian batter in IPL history.