RCB won the toss and elected to bat, and their decision looked very shrewd through the first fifteen overs. Virat Kohli, batting with the kind of focused authority that only a final brings out in him, combined with Rajat Patidar in a partnership of 87 runs off 58 balls for the third wicket. Kohli made 71 off 48 deliveries before Kagiso Rabada had him caught in the deep, and Phil Salt contributed a blistering 44 at the top.

When the final RCB over was done, the score read 183 for 6 — competitive, but not quite the total that had looked possible at the halfway point of the innings. Gujarat Titans, powered by Jos Buttler and Shubman Gill's extraordinary opening partnership, looked on course at 91 for 0 after nine overs. Then the game shifted. Three wickets in four deliveries from Josh Hazlewood — playing his first final after recovering from injury — left Titans reeling at 94 for 3. Rashid Khan tried his best with the bat at number seven, but RCB held their nerve to win by eight runs as the last Titans pair were dismissed with two balls to spare.

Rajat Patidar has now led RCB in two consecutive IPL campaigns and won both of them. In a leadership era in franchise cricket defined by reactive, data-driven decision-making, Patidar stands out for instinct and composure. His decision to bring Hazlewood back for the 18th over — against the conventional wisdom given the Australian had already bowled three tight overs — proved the decisive moment of the final.

Patidar scored 44 himself in the final while directing the field placing, reviewing decisions, and managing a bowling attack that had to absorb a Buttler-Gill blitz without capitulating. Across the full tournament, RCB won nine of their fourteen matches, qualified comfortably at third in the table, and peaked precisely when the season demanded it. The back-to-back tag is now forever attached to this squad, this captain, and this extraordinary Bengaluru innings.

The city that lost eleven fans in the tragedy at Chinnaswamy last June approached this season carrying grief alongside hope. RCB's decision to dedicate this season and both trophies to the victims of the stampede was announced at the team's pre-season press conference and kept alive in small ways throughout: black armbands during home matches, a minute's silence before each Chinnaswamy fixture, and the eleven empty seats that remained a permanent, quiet reminder inside the stadium.

When the final wicket fell in Ahmedabad and the entire RCB squad sprinted to the centre of the ground, Kohli dropped to his knees first. The cameras held on him for a long time. In the background, the Bengaluru fans in the away end were a wall of red and gold. Cricket can be brutal, and it can be beautiful. Sunday night at the Narendra Modi Stadium was very much the latter.