Yash Dayal (Image credit: BCCI/IPL)

Defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) have been dealt a massive blow ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 as the franchise confirmed that the fast bowler Yash Dayal will miss the entire tournament due to personal reasons. Yash Dayal was not seen in the RCB’s training sessions and also in the poster of RCB which sparked rumours of his absence from IPL 2026. Now RCB’s director of cricket, Mo Bobat, has cleared all the doubts over his absence. “So, just to confirm that Yash will not be joining up with the squad. As you know, he is going through a personal situation currently, and just to clarify, we’ve been very supportive of Yash to date and that’s reflected in the fact that we retained him when we had the opportunity to either retain or release players. We wanted to retain him, and he remains under contract and will continue in the short term to remain under contract,” Bobat told the media during a press conference on Tuesday. “We are communicating with him regularly. I spoke to him earlier today as well, but it has been decided that it is not in his best interest or the franchise’s best interest for him to join up with us at this point. He retains our support, and he remains under contract, and we’ll continue to speak to him as he goes through his personal situation,” he added.Earlier, TimesofIndia.com had reached out to multiple RCB officials for an update on Dayal, but they didn’t respond. It has been learnt that the BCCI Centre of Excellence contacted the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA) last September to check on the bowler, but the officials could not establish contact with him.“The case was going on against him, so he wasn’t considered for selection. I remember there was a call from CoE checking on him in September, but we weren’t able to establish any contact with Yash Dayal. He has even changed his number. Even his childhood coach doesn’t know his whereabouts,” a UPCA official tells TimesofIndia.com.

Yash Dayal for RCB in IPL

Yash Dayal has played two seasons (2024, 2025) with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), he has taken 28 wickets in 29 matches. He was a key figure in RCB’s bowling attack, notably helping the team reach the playoffs in 2024 and securing their first-ever IPL title in 2025. Dayal was the joint-highest wicket-taker for RCB in 2024 with 15 wickets. He has built a reputation as death over baller after conceding 5 sixes for Gujarat Titans in IPL 2023, RCB backed him and made him one of the dependable for RCB. Dayal, recently tied the knot with social media influencer Shweta Pundir in a primate ceremony, has been at the centre of major controversies of late. He was denied anticipatory bail a few months ago after he was involved in a case where he allegedly raped a minor. The controversy started in July 2025 when a lawsuit was brought against him for allegedly exploiting a woman under the guise of marriage. Later, a new case under the POSCO Act surfaced in Jaipur.

Shane Watson, Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Narine

The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 season is scheduled to begin on March 28, with defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) taking on Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

How is the Most Valuable Player selected?

The league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) is decided through a points system that measures a player’s overall contribution during the season. Players do not earn points for runs directly. Instead, each four earns 2.5 points and each six fetches 3.5 points. Bowlers receive 3.5 points per wicket and one point for every dot ball. Fielding efforts are also counted, with 2.5 points awarded for each catch and stumping. The player with the highest points total at the end of the season is named MVP.The concept was introduced in 2017, replacing the earlier Player of the Tournament award. Under this system, performance across batting, bowling and fielding is factored into a single points tally.The highest points recorded in a single IPL season stands at 450, achieved by Sunil Narine in the 2024 edition.Shane Watson was the first recipient of the Player of the Tournament award in 2008, playing a key role in Rajasthan Royals’ title win. He won it again in 2013 with the same franchise, becoming the first player to claim the honour twice. That season also marked the introduction of the points-based system. He remains one of three players to have won the award more than once.Among others, Kolkata Knight Riders players Andre Russell and Sunil Narine have won the award multiple times, with Narine holding the record with three wins in 2012, 2018 and 2024. Players such as Adam Gilchrist, Sachin Tendulkar, Chris Gayle, Glenn Maxwell, Virat Kohli, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Harshal Patel, Jos Buttler and Shubman Gill have each won it once.Suryakumar Yadav of Mumbai Indians was named the Player of the Tournament (MVP) in the 2025 season.

Full list of MVPs from IPL 2008-2025

Royal Challengers Bengaluru batter Virat Kohli seen during a practice session in Bengaluru.
| Photo Credit: K. Murali Kumar

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli (Agency Image)

Quick quiz: Since the first T20 World Cup in 2007, how many players who played only ODI cricket have been part of a 50-over World Cup-winning side? Answer: None. In 2027, across Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, Rohit and Kohli would love to change that. Assuming, of course, that they will be picked. Having retired from Tests and T20Is, they now occupy a curious space: giant names, shrinking game-time. Which is why this IPL matters so much. It is their most visible audition. If both want to convince a team management and selection panel that has become increasingly ruthless and pragmatic, they need to perform over the next eight weeks for Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bengaluru, respectively. That may sound dramatic. After all, few players have achieved more. But the road to the 2027 ODI World Cup will not be paved by reputation or old highlights. It will depend on present-day form and fitness. Both remain in the conversation, with captain Shubman Gill and others indicating as much. The harder question is whether they can last that long. For Rohit, who turns 39 on April 30, and Kohli, now 37, this IPL is a fitness test-cum-batting examination. Both are now one-format cricketers. Both must show they can endure a long, high-intensity campaign and still be standing in 2027. Fitness, though, is only half the issue. Form, that fickle friend, is the other. Ask any Indian cricketer what they fear most and the answer is simple: being out of sight, out of mind. That is what makes this IPL so important for Rohit and Kohli. It puts them back in view after public attention was seized by the heroes of India’s T20 World Cup triumph. ODIs are increasingly rare. India last played a five-match ODI series in Feb–March 2019. For single-format players, one poor series can mean a long wait for another chance. Those gaps hurt batters most: rhythm fades, match sharpness dulls and every failure feels terminal. For them, every substantial IPL innings will be read as evidence — or the lack of it — that Rohit and Kohli are still moving well, reacting sharply and carrying the intensity top-level ODI cricket demands. And unlike the IPL, ODIs offer no impact substitute, the ultimate safety valve for sluggish movers. It remains a seven-hour test of endurance. Lazy analysis has caused us to hyphenate Rohit and Kohli’s careers. Acronyms like the nauseating “Ro-Ko” have only reinforced that. Yet, the stakes are higher for Rohit. His ODI legacy is secure but age and role now sit at the heart of the debate, especially with younger opening options available alongside Gill that offer greater athletic value in the field. Fan armies have dressed up Rohit’s loose dismissals as intent. His rollicking 20s and 30s were hailed as selflessness. But poor habits become more stubborn with age. They bled into his Test game too, accelerating both technical decline and his eventual exit from the format. This IPL, selectors and coach Gautam Gambhir will watch him closely. Can Rohit start with intent, pull quality pace without losing shape, run hard, field efficiently and maintain acceptable fitness through a long campaign? He has crossed 500 runs in an IPL season only once, in 2013. Another middling season and quiet murmurs could metamorphose into harsh verdicts. His last three ODI scores, remember, were 3, 11 and 24. Kohli’s case is different. He has been the defining white-ball batter of his generation and one of Indian sport’s great athletic specimens. What he is chasing now is not excellence but sustained relevance. Against South Africa and New Zealand, he showed greater willingness to attack early, looking for boundaries inside his first 10 balls. It suggested adaptation. Kohli had already mastered low-risk accumulation in ODIs; now he has garnished it with consistent urgency. That matters in the IPL, where strike rate and impact shape or destroy narratives. Kohli will want to show he can still dominate key bowlers and keep pace with the modern game’s demands. If he can combine control with carnage, his case remains strong. He has 11 IPL seasons of 400-plus runs and while many came at strike rates in the mid-120s, in each of his last three seasons it has risen to above 140. Last year, while batting first, his strike rate was 147.8, higher than his strike rate while chasing, 142.18. Since 2025, his ODI strike rate is 98.45, above his career mark of 93.41. Kohli also knows that when senior players try to stretch themselves into another World Cup cycle, selectors judge more than numbers. They look for hunger, energy and intent. The IPL, played under relentless scrutiny and offering instant, unforgiving public judgment, is the perfect stage for such examinations. The league has increasingly become a selection filter across formats in India — sometimes, disturbingly, even for Tests. For Rohit and Kohli, this season is more than a tournament. It is their ticket to relevance.

AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli (Image credit: BCCI/IPL)

NEW DELHI: As the cricket world gears up for IPL 2026, one of the tournament’s most iconic “bromances” is back in the spotlight. AB de Villiers, the legendary South African batter and former Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) stalwart, has made a candid admission regarding his first impression of former captain Virat Kohli.While the duo eventually became the most feared batting pair in T20 history, De Villiers revealed that it wasn’t exactly “friendship at first sight”. Speaking about their early encounters on Mbangwa Media YouTube channel, the man known as Mr. 360 confessed that Kohli’s initial demeanour rubbed him the wrong way.“I didn’t initially like him a lot, to be honest. He was a bit cocky, you know, and I’ve told him that before. I’ve said it in many interviews. We sort of laugh at that now,” De Villiers remarked.

However, the Proteas legend was quick to clarify that this perceived arrogance was actually a mirror image of his own personality. “Why I say cocky is because I probably saw a similar kind of thing that I have in him; it’s that competitive drive,” he added. “It’s that thing that you’re born with, that I don’t like losing, nothing is going to change that. So I probably saw that in Virat initially when I met him.”The ice began to melt as the two spent more time together on the international circuit. De Villiers noted that beneath the aggressive exterior was a cricketer driven by a profound sense of duty to his team.“Then in the second or third meeting, getting to hear his voice and hear him speak, I’m like, oh okay, he’s also just human, you know, just a nice guy who’s got a deep drive of wanting to perform and win games of cricket for his country,” he added.The foundation of their legendary RCB partnership was actually laid during a tense Test match at the Wanderers after RCB picked Kohli. Despite being in the heat of an international battle, Kohli reached out to his future teammate.“And I remember in that tunnel, he came up to me, he’s like, ‘I’m glad you’re on our team.’ And we sort of vibed, like we’re going to be good friends. In the middle of a Test match, we would hardly ever speak to each other, and he just went like, ‘Yes, I’m so glad we got you.’ I’m like, okay, this guy actually likes me, we can maybe be mates,” De Villiers recalled