IPL 2026 Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) Best Retained Squad Players List

Captain Rajat Patidar to lead in our best retained squad players list for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026. 

It’s been only a few weeks since the Royal Challengers Bengaluru team won their maiden Indian Premier League title, but it still feels surreal. After 17 failed attempts, the RCB team was finally awarded with the much-coveted IPL trophy. It has been a blessing for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru fans after such a long gap, as they went from saying Ee Salla Cup Namde to Ee Salla Cup Namdu.

With RCB now experiencing success, they can’t relax a bit. As they say, with power comes great responsibility, and with RCB’s power at the helm currently, their next assignment shall be to focus on the retentions for IPL 2026. Since they won the IPL, their retentions shall be different from the other 9 teams. So, it will be interesting to see how they go about the retained and released players for IPL 2026.

The IPL 2025 Champions, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, will mostly be lean on releasing the players for the Indian Premier League 2026. Since they won the cup, they would like to retain as many players as possible. However, there are a few names who doesn’t add much value to the team, and will be on the radar in terms of the released players list. From the existing names in the squad, Liam Livingstone, Abhinandan Singh, and Mohit Rathee will be the ones likely to see the exit by RCB.

Why will RCB release Liam Livingstone?

Liam Livingstone was purchased for a huge price by the RCB team. But Liam just didn’t look comfortable throughout the IPL, and was way out of form before getting dropped. Since Liam’s cost is pretty high, it will be wise of RCB to release him, and instead look for another solid middle-order batter in the Auction. Aside from Liam, RCB may release Abhinandan Singh and Mohit Rathee, who didn’t play much role in IPL 2025, just so that RCB can hire 2-3 fresh names in the Auction.

Overall, among the confirmed names that RCB shall retain for IPL 2026 are their core members who mostly played a big part in winning the IPL 2025 trophy. The likes of which include Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Tim David, and Devdutt Padikkal among batters. Phil Salt and Jitesh Sharma among wicket-keepers. Krunal Pandya and Romario Shephard among the all-rounders. Josh Hazlewood, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yash Dayal, and Suyash Sharma among the bowlers. 

So, aside from the confirmed 12 names, the RCB team will look to retain Jacob Bethell, Lungi Ngidi, and Nuwan Thushara among Overseas players. These 3 Overseas players played an important part in RCB’s triumph last year, and performed well in whatever opportunity they got. So, even as a backup, these three players will be useful for the RCB team in IPL 2026. 

IPL 2026 Best Released Players List for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB)

1. Liam Livingstone
2. Abhinandan Singh
3. Mohit Rathee

Coming to other Indian players that RCB shall retain, we are looking at 5 more names, and those are Mayank Agarwal, Swapnil Singh, Manoj Bhandage, Swastik Chikara, and Rasikh Dar. Mayank, who was a part of the IPL 2025 final, has done more than enough to see his name among the retained players list for IPL 2026. Whereas the other 4 players will be useful as backups.

IPL 2026 Best Retained Squad and Players List for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB)

Batters: Devdutt Padikkal, Mayank Agarwal, Rajat Patidar (c), Swastik Chikara, Tim David (o) & Virat Kohli

WKs: Jitesh Sharma & Phil Salt (o)

All-rounders: Jacob Bethell (o), Krunal Pandya, Manoj Bhandage, Romario Shephard (o) & Swapnil Singh

Bowlers: Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood (o), Lungi Ngidi (o), Nuwan Thushara (o), Rasikh Dar, Suyash Sharma & Yash Dayal

So, that’s about the best retained players list for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for IPL 2026. Overall, expect RCB to retain 20 players, and that will leave a space for 1 more Overseas player, and 4-5 more Indian players. With Liam expected to see the exit, RCB will have around 8-9 Cr in the Auction with the current purse strength. If the purse strength increases, RCB will look to add a couple of  more solid players ot the squad. 

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