Chennai Super Kings vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru: IPL H2H
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Cricket in the Indian Premier League12 min read
Chennai Super Kings have won 21 of the 36 IPL matches between these two sides. Royal Challengers Bengaluru have won 14, and one game — at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in April 2012 — was washed out without a result. That is a clear lead, but it is a lead built almost entirely in the fixture's middle years, and the last two seasons have gone entirely the other way.
Bengaluru have won the four most recent meetings: the second leg of 2024 by 27 runs, both 2025 fixtures, and the single 2026 encounter at Chinnaswamy, where they made 250 for 3 and won by 43. Four in a row is the longest winning run Bengaluru have managed in the fixture. Chennai's equivalent best is seven, from May 2014 to March 2019.
The two have met once in an IPL final, at Chepauk on 28 May 2011, and Chennai won it by 58 runs with Murali Vijay taking the player-of-the-match award. They have met three other times in knockouts, and Chennai won two of those as well.
The ledger, split by who owned the ground
| Where | Matches | CSK won | RCB won | No result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chennai home grounds | 10 | 8 | 2 | 0 |
| Bengaluru home grounds | 13 | 5 | 7 | 1 |
| Neutral or relocated | 13 | 8 | 5 | 0 |
| All matches | 36 | 21 | 14 | 1 |
Chepauk is where this fixture has been decided. Ten matches there, eight to Chennai, and only two Bengaluru wins — the second game of the very first season in May 2008, and the 50-run win in March 2025. Bengaluru's home record is respectable rather than commanding: seven wins from thirteen at Chinnaswamy, with Chennai taking five.
The neutral column is unusually large for an IPL fixture because so much of it was played away from either home. Three matches came in South Africa in 2009, two in Dubai during the 2020 season, one in Sharjah in 2021, and the 2022 season put both legs in Maharashtra. Chennai are 8-5 in those thirteen.
Season by season, 2008 to 2026
| Season | Meetings | CSK | RCB | Knockout |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 2 | 1 | 1 | — |
| 2009 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Semi-final |
| 2010 | 2 | 1 | 1 | — |
| 2011 | 4 | 3 | 1 | Qualifier 1, Final |
| 2012 | 2 | 1 | 0 | — |
| 2013 | 2 | 1 | 1 | — |
| 2014 | 2 | 1 | 1 | — |
| 2015 | 3 | 3 | 0 | Qualifier 2 |
| 2018 | 2 | 2 | 0 | — |
| 2019 | 2 | 1 | 1 | — |
| 2020 | 2 | 1 | 1 | — |
| 2021 | 2 | 2 | 0 | — |
| 2022 | 2 | 1 | 1 | — |
| 2023 | 1 | 1 | 0 | — |
| 2024 | 2 | 1 | 1 | — |
| 2025 | 2 | 0 | 2 | — |
| 2026 | 1 | 0 | 1 | — |
The gap in 2016 and 2017 is the two-year suspension Chennai served, when Rising Pune Supergiant and Gujarat Lions took the vacant places. Bengaluru have taken both legs of a season only once, in 2025. Chennai have done it four times.
The four knockouts
| Season | Stage | Ground | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Semi-final | New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg | RCB 149/4 (18.5) beat CSK 146/5 by 6 wickets |
| 2011 | Qualifier 1 | Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai | CSK 177/4 (19.4) beat RCB 175/4 by 6 wickets |
| 2011 | Final | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai | CSK 205/5 beat RCB 147/8 by 58 runs |
| 2015 | Qualifier 2 | JSCA International Stadium Complex, Ranchi | CSK 140/7 (19.5) beat RCB 139/8 by 3 wickets |
Three of the four were settled by a margin of six wickets or fewer, which is not what the 2011 season is remembered for. The final was the outlier: Chennai's 205 was the highest total either side had made in the fixture at that point, and it stood as the record for eleven years. The 2009 season semi-final in Johannesburg remains Bengaluru's only knockout win over Chennai, and the 2015 Qualifier 2 at Ranchi went to the last over of a 140-run chase.
Every meeting
| # | Season | Date | Stage | Ground | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2008 | 28 April | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | CSK won by 13 runs |
| 2 | 2008 | 21 May | League | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium | RCB won by 14 runs |
| 3 | 2009 | 20 April | League | St George's Park, Port Elizabeth | CSK won by 92 runs |
| 4 | 2009 | 14 May | League | Kingsmead, Durban | RCB won by 2 wickets |
| 5 | 2009 | 23 May | Semi-final | New Wanderers Stadium | RCB won by 6 wickets |
| 6 | 2010 | 23 March | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | RCB won by 36 runs |
| 7 | 2010 | 31 March | League | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium | CSK won by 5 wickets |
| 8 | 2011 | 16 April | League | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium | CSK won by 21 runs |
| 9 | 2011 | 22 May | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | RCB won by 8 wickets |
| 10 | 2011 | 24 May | Qualifier 1 | Wankhede Stadium | CSK won by 6 wickets |
| 11 | 2011 | 28 May | Final | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium | CSK won by 58 runs |
| 12 | 2012 | 12 April | League | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium | CSK won by 5 wickets |
| 13 | 2012 | 25 April | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | No result |
| 14 | 2013 | 13 April | League | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium | CSK won by 4 wickets |
| 15 | 2013 | 18 May | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | RCB won by 24 runs |
| 16 | 2014 | 18 May | League | JSCA International Stadium Complex | RCB won by 5 wickets |
| 17 | 2014 | 24 May | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | CSK won by 8 wickets |
| 18 | 2015 | 22 April | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | CSK won by 27 runs |
| 19 | 2015 | 4 May | League | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium | CSK won by 24 runs |
| 20 | 2015 | 22 May | Qualifier 2 | JSCA International Stadium Complex | CSK won by 3 wickets |
| 21 | 2018 | 25 April | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | CSK won by 5 wickets |
| 22 | 2018 | 5 May | League | Maharashtra CA Stadium, Pune | CSK won by 6 wickets |
| 23 | 2019 | 23 March | League | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium | CSK won by 7 wickets |
| 24 | 2019 | 21 April | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | RCB won by 1 run |
| 25 | 2020 | 10 October | League | Dubai International Cricket Stadium | RCB won by 37 runs |
| 26 | 2020 | 25 October | League | Dubai International Cricket Stadium | CSK won by 8 wickets |
| 27 | 2021 | 25 April | League | Wankhede Stadium | CSK won by 69 runs |
| 28 | 2021 | 24 September | League | Sharjah Cricket Stadium | CSK won by 6 wickets |
| 29 | 2022 | 12 April | League | DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai | CSK won by 23 runs |
| 30 | 2022 | 4 May | League | MCA Stadium, Pune | RCB won by 13 runs |
| 31 | 2023 | 17 April | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | CSK won by 8 runs |
| 32 | 2024 | 22 March | League | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium | CSK won by 6 wickets |
| 33 | 2024 | 18 May | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | RCB won by 27 runs |
| 34 | 2025 | 28 March | League | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium | RCB won by 50 runs |
| 35 | 2025 | 3 May | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | RCB won by 2 runs |
| 36 | 2026 | 5 April | League | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium | RCB won by 43 runs |
Highest and lowest totals in the fixture
| Total | Team | Season | Ground |
|---|---|---|---|
| 250/3 | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | 2026 | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium |
| 226/6 | Chennai Super Kings | 2023 | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium |
| 218/8 | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 2023 | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium |
| 218/5 | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | 2024 | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium |
| 216/4 | Chennai Super Kings | 2022 | DY Patil Stadium |
| 213/5 | Royal Challengers Bengaluru | 2025 | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium |
| 211/5 | Chennai Super Kings | 2025 | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium |
| 208/5 | Chennai Super Kings | 2012 | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium |
The lowest completed total is Bengaluru's 70 all out in 17.1 overs at Chepauk on 23 March 2019, the opening night of that season. Chennai needed 71 and lost three wickets getting them, which made it the lowest aggregate match in the fixture by a wide margin. Bengaluru's 87 in 15.2 overs at Port Elizabeth in 2009 is the next lowest. Nine of the twelve 200-plus innings in this fixture have come since 2018, and six of them at Chinnaswamy — a pattern the M. Chinnaswamy pitch report explains better than any head-to-head table can.
What has changed in the scoring
Average first-innings totals across the three eras of this fixture:
| Period | Matches | Average first-innings total |
|---|---|---|
| 2008-2013 | 14 | 161 |
| 2014-2019 | 9 | 147 |
| 2020-2026 | 12 | 194 |
The dip in the middle is the least intuitive number on this page, and it is mostly Chepauk. Five of those nine matches were played on Chennai's home surface or on the Ranchi pitch used when Chepauk was unavailable, and both rewarded spin. The 2019 match that produced 70 all out sits in that window. From 2020 the fixture has been played increasingly at Chinnaswamy, and the first-innings average has gone up by close to 50 runs.
Chasing, defending and the 200-run games
Chennai have won 12 of their 21 by chasing and nine by defending. Bengaluru's split is the reverse and more extreme: ten of their fourteen wins came setting a target, only four chasing. Chennai are also responsible for both of the fixture's biggest successful chases, taking down 206 at Chepauk in 2012 and 206 again at Chinnaswamy in 2018, each by five wickets.
Four observations the tables do not make obvious:
- Chennai's dominance is a Chepauk phenomenon plus the 2015-2021 stretch. Strip out the ten matches at Chepauk and the ledger reads 13-12 to Chennai from 25 matches, with one no result.
- The fixture has produced only one one-run margin, Bengaluru's win at Chinnaswamy on 21 April 2019, and one two-run margin, also at Chinnaswamy, in May 2025. Both went to Bengaluru.
- Bengaluru's 250 for 3 in 2026 was 24 runs more than any total previously made in the fixture, and it came in the season they won a second consecutive title.
- The 18 May 2013 match at Chinnaswamy was cut to eight overs a side by rain and is the only meeting decided over a shortened game.
Where the individual records sit
This page counts matches, not players, and the pair-level batting and bowling aggregates for these 36 games are not published in a form we can verify line by line. What can be stated cleanly is the franchise context. Virat Kohli's RCB career is the largest run aggregate any player has assembled for one IPL side, and MS Dhoni's record as Chennai's wicketkeeper-captain covers the years in which almost all of Chennai's lead in this fixture was built. Michael Hussey's unbeaten 83 in the 21-run win at Chepauk on 16 April 2011 is one of the fixture's better-documented individual innings.
For the wider franchise pictures, the Chennai Super Kings hub and the Royal Challengers Bengaluru hub carry squad, season and honours detail, and the IPL section indexes every season. Chennai's other long-standing fixture, against Mumbai Indians, has been played more often than this one. The 2025 and 2026 season pages cover the two years in which Bengaluru finally turned the recent record around, and the broader story of the competition within Indian cricket sits on the cricket in India hub. Chepauk's own numbers are on the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium records page.
Sources and method
Match results, dates, venues, innings scores and margins are taken from this site's IPL season match lists covering 2008 to 2026, and cross-checked against ESPNcricinfo scorecards and the official IPL season archives. Every figure on this page is computed from that match list rather than copied from a published summary table, which is why the venue and era splits are broken out the way they are.
Counting conventions used here: the 36 total includes the abandoned 2012 fixture at Chinnaswamy, which is shown as a no result and excluded from both win columns. Franchise names appear as they stood in the relevant season, so Royal Challengers Bangalore up to 2023 and Royal Challengers Bengaluru from 2024. Home-ground allocation follows which side was the designated host, not simply the city. The 2013 Chinnaswamy match reduced to eight overs a side is included in the results table but excluded from the first-innings averages.
Two things are deliberately absent. Pair-level individual aggregates — leading run scorer and leading wicket taker across these 36 matches specifically — are not given, because the underlying dataset holds match results rather than ball-by-ball detail and we will not estimate them. Franchise career figures quoted in the section above are all-IPL totals, not fixture-only. Records current as of 27 August 2026.