KL Rahul marks his territory in Bengaluru as RCB camps question Chinnaswamy pitch: 'We'll have a chat with curator'

Bengaluru boy KL Rahul celebrated aggressively after hitting a match-winning 93 not out off 53 balls as Delhi Capitals (DC) romped to a six-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday.

Asked to come in early after DC lost three wickets in the powerplay, chasing a 164-run target against RCB, Rahul smashed six sixes at his home ground and celebrated the win by marking his territory.

He drew a circle with the bat on the ground and thumped the bat in the middle to send a strong signal to his former team RCB.

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After his match-winning knock, Rahul spoke about excelling in tough conditions where other batters struggled. “Wicketkeeping gave me a feeler for how the other batters played and where were they dismissed. Got lucky with the dropped catch. This is my ground, this is my home. I know this better than anybody else. Enjoyed playing here,” he said after the match.

Chinnaswamy is known for high-scoring games but that hasn’t been the case so far in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 with RCB losing both low-scoring matches. Against Gujarat Titans, the Rajat Patidar-led side only managed 169 before losing by eight wickets and a similar score was posted against DC.

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RCB looking to have a word with Chinnaswamy curator

RCB batting coach Dinesh Karthik said that RCB had been asking for “good” pitches but the current racks are not helping batters. He added the team is willing to have a chat with the curator.

“In the first two games, we have asked for good pitches. But it’s turned out in this way where it’s been challenging to bat on, for sure. Definitely, this is not a pitch that’s helping the batters too much. It’s a challenging pitch. That has been the case so far in both the games that we have played,” Karthik said after RCB’s loss.

“There’s been a wobble when people have tried to stay out there and fight it out as well. It’s been hard to, at times, rotate strike. And the big shot has been really hard as well. So we have tried to control it [the hitting],” Karthik added.

“But, at the end, it’s a T20. You have to play some shots and that has gotten the wicket of a few batters.

“We will obviously have a chat with the curator. We trust him to do his job, and we will try and do the best of what we can.”

RCB captain Patidar also highlighted the difference in pitch and lamented his team’s poor batting.

“I think the way we saw the wicket, it was quite different, we thought it was a nice batting wicket, but we didn’t bat well,” he said.

RCB will now once again leave for an away match before returning to Chinnaswamy on 18 April for a game against Punjab Kings. They will hope the pitch concerns are sorted by then.