After waiting for almost three years in August 2022, Virat Kohli, who scored the first international century, finally ended the wait for his century in IPL as well. When Royal Challengers Bangalore needed the most against Sunrisers Hyderabad, its most successful batsman and former captain Kohli showed his true colours. Bangalore needed a win to stay in the playoffs and Kohli led the team to victory with a memorable century in the chase.
Virat Kohli, who got off to a brisk start to the IPL 2023 season, failed in the last few matches. Not only was he getting out without scoring big, but he was also facing criticism for his slow innings. He took all this out against Hyderabad. In response to the target of 187 runs, Kohli started the innings with 2 consecutive fours in the very first over.
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Usually, despite fast batting in the powerplay, Kohli was slowing down after the sixth over, but this time he did not let that happen. Although Hyderabad had put inexperienced spinners on the attack, which also made it a little easier. Kohli completed his 7th half-century of this season in 35 balls. Also shared another century partnership with captain Faf Duplessis.
After the half century, Kohli became more aggressive. He hit some more big shots from here and completed his century in the 18th over by sending Bhuvneshwar’s ball over deep midwicket for a six. He completed this record century in 62 balls.
However, in an attempt to hit a six again on the very next ball, Kohli was caught out at the boundary. The former Bangalore captain scored 100 runs in 63 balls with the help of 12 fours and 4 sixes. He became the eighth and sixth Indian batsman to score a century in this season. Before him, Indian batsmen Venkatesh Iyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav and Prabhsimran Singh scored centuries.
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This is the sixth century of Kohli’s IPL career. He had earlier scored 4 centuries in 2016. Then in 2019, his last century came against Kolkata Knight Riders. With this, he equalled Chris Gayle’s IPL record of 6 centuries. The special aspect is that on May 18, 2016, Kohli scored a century. Then he scored 113 runs as the captain of Bangalore.