Kohli’s century leads Bangalore to victory over Kolkata, tops table

Royal Challengers Bangalore strengthened their playoff chances by defeating Kolkata Knight Riders by 6 wickets on Wednesday night. Virat Kohli’s unbeaten century innings of 105 runs propelled Bangalore to the top of the table.

Kolkata, batting first, set a target of 193 runs for Bangalore, which they achieved with 5 balls to spare, losing 4 wickets in the process. The match, held at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium in Raipur, saw Kohli play a historic innings. With this innings, he became the fastest batter to reach 14,000 runs in T20 cricket, achieving the milestone in just 409 innings, breaking Chris Gayle’s previous record of 423 innings.

Kohli also achieved the feat of scoring over 400 runs in a single IPL season for the 12th time, becoming the player with the most matches played in IPL history. This is Kohli’s 12th season with over 400 runs. David Warner is in second place with 9 such seasons.

Playing his 279th IPL match for RCB, Kohli surpassed Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Rohit Sharma, who have both played 278 IPL matches. Kohli now has over 9,000 runs in IPL, with 9 centuries and 66 half-centuries, totaling 9,145 runs in 279 matches.

This was Kohli’s ninth century in his IPL career, further solidifying his record for the most centuries in the tournament. Jos Buttler follows with 7 centuries. This was also Kohli’s 10th century in T20 cricket, matching David Warner’s record. Chris Gayle holds the top spot with 22 centuries, while Babar Azam has 13.

Kohli scored his third century while chasing in IPL, equaling Jos Buttler’s record. Kohli and Buttler now share the record for the most ‘chasing centuries’ in IPL history.

Kohli also became the second batter to score two centuries against two different teams in IPL. He has scored two centuries each against Gujarat Lions and Kolkata Knight Riders.

After his match-winning century against Kolkata, Kohli was declared ‘Player of the Match’ for the 21st time, tying with Rohit Sharma. Both players now have 21 ‘Player of the Match’ awards in IPL. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is third with 18 awards, while Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul are jointly fourth with 17 awards each.

Kohli also became the highest run-scorer against Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL, amassing 1,126 runs against them. He holds the record for the most runs against a single team in IPL, with 1,174 runs against Chennai Super Kings and 1,172 against Delhi Capitals.