Tempers flared, and egos peaked in the Royal Challengers Bengaluru vs Sunrisers Hyderabad contest on Friday, and of course, it involved Virat Kohli. SRH handed a 55-run thrashing to the defending champions to end their league stage of IPL 2026 on a high note. The game saw Kohli and Travis Head involved in a heated on-field banter before it spilled over after the game ended, where Kohli refused to shake hands with Head.
Kohli snubs Head’s handshake
The on-field incident occurred when Kohli was batting along with Venkatesh Iyer. The RCB batter was seen making an ‘X’ gesture with his hands, while hurling a mouthful at Head. The SRH star, instead of responding, just smirked. Commentators suggested that the RCB batter was asking the SRH star to roll his arm over or leave the field as an impact player. Kohli managed to score just 15 runs from 11 balls in the run chase.
#ViratKohli #TravisHead Tensions rise in high voltage clash#TATAIPL Race to Playoffs 2026 #SRHvRCB | LIVE NOW t.co/52qPTW2gSO pic.twitter.com/JOiWaxNW6T
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) May 22, 2026While Kohli shook hands with the rest of the SRH players after the game, he simply ignored Head’s handshake and instead shook hands with Ishan Kishan, who was behind him.
Virat, when speaking on a podcast: "I leave things and aggression when the match is over."Reality when the match is over No Handshake when Travis Head offered one pic.twitter.com/UKPIlAWJpb
— Pitch Perfect (@_pitch__perfect) May 22, 2026Right from the point where the chase started, it was pretty clear, that the 256-run target was out of reach for RCB. So, they perhaps did the smart thing, but not losing a lot of wickets — and aimed to get to 178, that was needed to finish on top. Apart from 44 from 19 by Venkatesh Iyer, all other other batters were relatively slow. Padikkal got 21 from 14, Krunal got 41 from 31 and skipper Patidar got 56 from 39.
Abhishek Sharma was dropped thrice before scoring 56 from 22. Then Ishan Kishan (79) and Heinrich Klaasen (51) got into the act and stitched a partnership of 113 in 8 overs. Nitish Kumar Reddy took over and his cameo boosted SRH to 255/4 after 20 overs. It was at that very moment, on a difficult pitch, that Hyderabad had made a winning statement.
As a result of yesterday’s win, SRH will play the Eliminator while RCB will play the Qualifier 1 against GT in Dharamshala.
Virat Kohli ignores Travis Head’s handshake after SRH thrash RCB as on-field spat escalates Inside Sport India.
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