Star India batter Virat Kohli scored the first century of the Indian Premier League 2024 as his 113 not out off 72 balls carried Royal Challengers Bengaluru to 183/3 against Rajasthan Royals on Saturday at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. (Scorecard | More Cricket News)
Kohli started slowly but then picked up pace in the later part of the innings.
After reaching his fifty in 39 balls, Kohli accelerated well and took just 28 balls for his next fifty. Kohli was dropped on 66, an extremely tough chance for Nandre Burger at point, in the 14th over.
The former RCB skipper completed the ton, his eighth in the IPL and ninth in all T20s, off 67 balls on the fourth delivery of the 19th over, making it the joint-slowest hundred in the history of the tournament alongside Manish Pandey's 67-ball century also for RCB in IPL 2009.
Enroute his hundred, Kohli also became the first player to score over 7500 runs in IPL.
This was Kohli's third hundred in his last seven innings in IPL.
The right-hander smashed four sixes and 12 fours in his innings where he shared a 125-run stand for the first wicket with skipper Faf du Plessis. The South African scored a 35-ball 44. However, no other RCB batter apart from skipper Faf du Plessis could add much to the team's score.
Earlier, RR had chosen to bowl after winning the toss. Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal was the stand out bowler for the Royals. Chahal took the wickets of du Plessis and Saurav Chauhan (9 off 6) in his four-over spell where he gave away 34 runs. South African pacer Nandre Burger took the wicket of Glenn Maxwell (1 off 3). R Ashwin also bowled a tight spell of 28 runs in four overs.
For RCB, Australian all-rounder Cameron Green went not out for 5 runs off 6 balls.
