Live Score
Cricket Teams
Cricket Players‘Excited’ AB de Villiers drops million-dollar reaction as longtime RCB teammate Virat Kohli ends IPL century drought
Virat Kohli scored his first IPL century since 2019 to lead RCB to a comfortable win over SRH.
Virat Kohli's sixth Indian Premier League (IPL) was the highlight of a memorable evening for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). RCB pretty much wrestled their fate into their own hands in the cut-throat race for a playoff spot in the 2023 IPL with an eight-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad.
SRH scored 186/5, largely thanks to a masterful 104 off 51 balls by Heinrich Klaasen. However, RCB captain Faf du Plessis and his opening partner Virat Kohli ended up making light work of that target. The pair shared a 172-run opening stand with Kohli scoring 100 off 63 balls.
This was Kohli's first IPL century since 2019 and his sixth overall, thus equalling Chris Gayle's record for the most in the history of the tournament. It also comes as a part of a larger return to century-scoring form for Kohli as he ended his long-running droughts in Tests and ODIs while also scoring his first-ever T20I century at the 2022 Asia Cup.
Naturally, a number of former players and commentators expressed their admiration for what Kohli achieved and foremost among them was his former RCB teammate and South Africa batting great AB de Villiers. De Villiers appreciated his former Proteas teammate Du Plessis's innings, going on to say that he is excited for just how “hungry” RCB as a whole look this season.
Rated by many as the greatest batter to have ever played in the IPL, De Villiers shared a dressing room with Kohli at RCB for 10 years between 2011 and 2021. While the pair was often part of some of the most devastating batting lineups ever seen in the tournament, RCB curiously never won the title during the time De Villiers played. The team reached the final only twice in the period he played for them in 2011 and 2016. In the 2016 season, De Villiers had scored 687 runs at a strike rate of 168.79 with one century and six half centuries. Kohli, though, had gone berzerk that season, scoring a record 973 runs and a record four centuries in that season alone.
