The orange cap for the most runs in a season of the Indian Premier League has been won by Virat Kohli, star batsman. Consequently, he is now the only Indian who has twice received this distinction.
He scored an impressive 741 runs in 15 matches although his team, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, was eliminated from the playoffs after losing to Rajasthan Royals. His average was 61.75 per match; he achieved a top score of 113*, and had a strike rate of 154.69.
In addition to five fifties and one century thus far, he also hit at sixes – which equaled his best record (38) for any single season (he had done it before when he scored 973 runs in 16 games including four centuries and seven half-centuries).
Virat Kohli is praised these days for his aggressive approach especially against spinners as being different from what he used to be. Throughout his IPL career spanning over two hundred fifty two matches, Virat Kohli has amassed eight thousand and four runs with an average of thirty-eight point six six including one hundred and thirty-one dot nine seven as strike rate. Of these highlights are eight hundreds while fifty-five have not reached that mark with his highest being one hundred and thirteen not out.
At second place is Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain Ruturaj Gaikwad who scored fifty-three off fourteen games with an average of fifty three; this included one century plus four half centuries besides having a record high of108*. His strike rate was 141.16.
Riyan Parag finished at third position in terms of overall batting figures for RR this year: out of sixteen matches/innings played by the all-rounder, Parg hit up five hundred seventy-three runs at a rate slightly below sixty with fourteen innings averaging fifty-two dot zero nine; similarly another sixteen innings had been played at an average of hundred fifty point two one. His highest score in the entire tournament was 92.18.
Travis Head (SRH, 567 runs in 15 innings with an average of 40.50 and a strike rate of 191.55, including a hundred and four fifties), Sanju Samson (RR, 531 runs with fifteen matches at an average of 48.27 and a strike rate of 153.46, including five half centuries), Sai Sudarshan (Gujarat Titans, twelve matches played averaged forty-seven and ninety at an average rate of one hundred and forty-one point two eight with eight hundreds plus a century), KL Rahul (Lucknow Super Giants, fourteen games averaging thirty-seven point one four which include four fifties) along with Nicholas Pooran (LSG, fourteen innings’168 ball faced while scoring on the average sixty-two dot three seven out of five hundreds) are other top batters this season.
Later on June 1st in West Indies and USA during the ICC T20 World Cup ,Virat will be seen playing for his national team. He has scored more than any other player so far in this competition: making one thousand one hundred and forty-one runs in twenty-seven matches for India against various countries including West Indies; his batting averaged eighty-one point five per game during that time period while there have been twenty-five allowed by rules to bat for him only. In addition he has registered fourteen half centuries; among them was best score were eighty-nine not out.
The final between SRH & KKR saw SRH winning the toss & opting to bat first. KKR put up tremendous pressure due to perpetual wickets that had fallen & big buy Mitchell Starc paid off his price tag thus justifying it as Rs24.75cr. Only skipper Pat Cummins (24 off nineteen balls –two fours/six); Aiden Markram (20 off 23 balls -three fours) & none other than these two could cross the twenty run mark as SRH were bundled for 113 in 18.3 overs.
KKR’s top bowler was Andre Russell who took three wickets for 19 runs. Starc (2/14) and Harshit Rana (2/24) also did well with the ball. Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy and Vaibhav Arora each had one wicket.
114 is what KKR needs in order to win a third title since 2014.
