Virat Kohli notched smashed his eighth century in the previous match of Royal Challengers Bengaluru against Rajasthan Royals at the 2024 edition of Indian Premier League. The former captain of RCB has been the lone warrior for his team with the willow in their first five games of the new season. Registering his joint best score of the career of unbeaten 113 against Rajasthan. Virat Kohli has total of eight centuries which are two more than second-placed batters – Chris Gayle and Jos Buttler (6) in the elite list.
Kohli remained unbeaten on 113 off 72 balls to help his team RCB post a total of 183 runs at the loss of 3 wickets in 20 overs. In the same encounter, Orange Cap winner of 2022 Jos Buttler slammed a 58-ball century to seal six-wicket win of Rajasthan in 19.1 overs. Kohli completed his century in 67 balls, which is the joint-slowest century in the history of IPL. Manish Pandey scored a century in 67 balls to notch up the slowest century against Deccan Chargers back in the IPL edition 2009.
In the T20 World Cup year the strike rate of Kohli has come under the scanner of his critics. However, there is no denying that the former captain of team India is taking risks and playing aggressive cricket in the world’s richest T20 tournament that is IPL. Even Brian Lara who is the legendary cricketer of West Indies has kept Kohli in his list of the top 3 batters for the T20 World Cup.
According to a report, Kohli is expected to retain his place in the T20 squad of India for the ICC event later this year. Even though the strike rate of Kohli was questioned in the IPL 2024, the report suggested that there was no way Kohli would be left out of the World Cup squad. In the first five IPL matches, Kohli batted at a strike rate of 146.29 as an opener of RCB. At the IPL 2024 kohli is the leading run taker.
In the IPL 2024 Pant has an edge over wicketkeeper-batters Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Jitesh Sharma and KL Rahul.
At the IPL 2024 which is the comeback season of Pant he has smashed 153 runs for DC in five games they have played. Pant has registered scores of 18, 28, 51, 55 and 1 for his franchise.