Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper Virat Kohli on Thursday became the second cricketer to reach 5000 IPL runs after Suresh Raina. In the process he became the fastest cricketer to reach the landmark.
Raina breached the 5000-run mark on the first day of IPL 2019 against Royal Challengers Bangalore in his 177th match while Kohli took 165 games to reach the milestone.
Before Thursday’s match against Mumbai Indians, Kohli needed 46 to get to the feat and was exactly dismissed on that score by Jasprit Bumrah off a bouncer. The skipper took 32 balls for his 46, which included six boundaries.
(Photo: The Quint/Shruti Mathur)
On Thursday, Bangalore playing their first home game of the season, won the toss and asked Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians to bat first. A composite batting performance by the Mumbai batsmen meant that they set a challenging score of 187/8 with Hardik Pandya scoring 32 off 14 balls in the final few overs of Mumbai’s innings.
(Photo: The Quint/Shruti Mathur)
In the same match, De Villiers also got to 4000 runs in the IPL. He is the tenth batsman in IPL and the first South African to achieve the feat. He along with the RCB skipper has been one of the most consistent batsmen in the IPL and has been among the top-scorers in the last five seasons. He scored 70 off 41 balls but Bangalore lost the game by 6 runs as the fans were left disappointed despite a batting master-class by Kohli and De Villiers.