It looks like Virat Kohli has finally found his touch in the Indian Premier League. After a series of failures with the bat in the last few matches, skipper Kohli has answered his critics in the best possible way.
In the process he overtook Suresh Raina as the highest run scorer in the IPL. Kohli reached the landmark, while batting at 61 against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Chinnaswamy in Bangalore on Friday.
The Bangalore skipper reached the landmark in 160 innings at an average of 38.24 and now has 5110 runs in the tournament. Meanwhile, Suresh Raina has scored 5086 runs from 176 innings.
Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma is 3rd in the list of most runs in the IPL with 4600 runs. David Warner (Sunrisers Hyderabad) is 4th with 4278 runs. Robin Uthappa (Kolkata Knight Riders) is 5th with 4242 runs.
In the same match, Kohli also became the second batsman from India to complete 8,000 runs in T20 cricket after Suresh Raina. He is the seventh batsman to do so in T20 cricket. He is the second fastest after Chris Gayle, who has over 12,000 T20 runs, to the landmark.
Put into bat by Dinesh Karthik, Royal Challenger Bangalore’s skipper Virat Kohli dispatched Prasidh Krishna for two boundaries in the first over of the innings and from there on he never looked back. A familiar Virat Kohli was at display for the Chinnaswamy crowd as he creamed boundaries off the Kolkata bowlers.
Kohli looked in ominous touch as he brought up his fifty in 31 balls.
By the time Kohli was dismissed, he had accumulated 84 runs of 49 deliveries and Bangalore was placed handsomely at 172/2. During his innings he hit nine fours and two sixes and scored at a strike rate of 171.43. He was part of a 108 run partnership with South African AB de Villiers for the second wicket. This was Kohli's first fifty of the season.
Kohli has been part of the IPL since its inception in 2008 and has played for Royal Challengers Bangalore since the first season