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New Delhi. This time in IPL 2026, not only the rain of fours and sixes and exciting matches were seen on the field, but along with this, an amazing storm of food and drinks was also seen in the entire country. While the players were scoring runs on the field, the cricket lovers of the country were sitting in their homes and restaurants ordering food. During the matches, people ordered food so much and booked tables in restaurants that this time a historic and tremendous surge has been recorded in the business of food delivery and dining out.

You can guess the craze for food this season from the fact that all the old records of orders on the food delivery platform Swiggy were broken. According to Swiggy, during IPL 2026, there was a huge increase of more than 32.31% in food orders on its platform as compared to the previous season. Not only at home, but the trend of going out to watch the match was also very popular, due to which a huge jump of 41% was recorded in the booking of restaurants through ‘Swiggy Dineout’ on an annual basis.

The gourmets of these cities are at the forefront, biryani and sweets won

This time, some specific cities of the country were at the forefront in ordering food during IPL matches. During the second qualifier played on May 29 and the final match held on May 31, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad topped the list of cities ordering the most food. Apart from big metros, people also placed orders in small and emerging cities like Surat, Thiruvananthapuram and Vadodara and the demand for food increased at rocket speed there too.

If we talk about what was the first choice of people while watching the match, then as always, Chicken Biryani won the list. During the matches, the countrymen placed maximum orders for Chicken Biryani, Chicken Fried Rice and Veg Burger. Whereas, among the light snacks, pav bhaji and chicken popcorn were popular. To enjoy the sweet taste amid the excitement of the match, people liked sweets like Choco Lava Cake, Tender Coconut Ice Cream and Rasmalai the most.

6,200 orders came in one minute, this hobbyist from Gurugram spent ₹ 20,000

This time, during the last round of IPL matches, the traffic on delivery apps was so high that even the companies were surprised to see the number of orders per minute. During the second qualifier match played on May 29, more than 5,200 orders were registered in a single minute at exactly 8:12 pm. During this match, a big cricket lover and foodie customer from Gurugram ordered 45 special veg thalis at once, for which he spent Rs 20,205.

Just two days later, i.e. in the final match held on 31st May, the demand for food destroyed all records. During this title match played between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Gujarat Titans (GT), on an average more than 1,300 orders were coming every minute in the entire match. The limit was reached when more than 6,200 orders were collected on the platform within a single minute at 7:56 pm, just before the start of the match.

There is no space to set foot in restaurants due to matches, bill of Rs 2.14 lakhs

There were many cricket fans who thought it better to go to restaurants with their friends and entire family instead of watching the match alone on the TV screen at home. This was the reason why Swiggy Dineout saw a massive growth of 41% in table bookings during IPL 2026. The highest number of tables were booked in Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune, while cities like Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh and Lucknow emerged as new and fast-growing markets in the race.

The most shocking incident of this season was seen in Bengaluru. During the qualifier match on May 29, a group of 20 people were watching the match together in a restaurant in Bengaluru. While eating, drinking and enjoying the match, these people racked up a huge restaurant bill of Rs 2,14,061, which was one of the biggest bills of the entire IPL season. The day of the final also set a new record for restaurant bookings in Bengaluru, where restaurants in the city saw 32% more bookings on 31 May as compared to 17 May. In this way, IPL 2026 once again proved that cricket in India is not just a game but a huge social and entertainment festival of food, drink and celebration.