Virat Kohli achieved a new milestone by breaking the world record for most half-centuries at a single venue in T20 cricket, scoring his 26th fifty at Bengaluru’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday (April 24). His 42-ball 70 helped Royal Challengers Bengaluru secure their first home victory of the IPL season against Rajasthan Royals.
Kohli surpassed England’s Alex Hales, who previously held the record with 25 fifties at Trent Bridge in Nottingham. The stellar performance also established Kohli’s dominance in all batting parameters – average, fifties, centuries, and runs – in T20 format at a single venue.
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The record for most fifties at one venue in T20 cricket now stands with Kohli at 26, followed by Hales at 25, James Vince with 24 at The Rose Bowl, Tamim Iqbal with 23 at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, and Jason Roy with 21 at The Oval.
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The RCB stalwart praised the venue and the fans. “This venue is the best place to play cricket in the IPL, and the fans backed us during good and bad times. It is a special place and has a lot of special memories.”
Most fifties at one venue in T20 cricket
- 26 – Virat Kohli at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru
- 25 – Alex Hales at Trent Bridge, Nottingham
- 24 – James Vince at The Rose Bowl, Southampton
- 23 – Tamim Iqbal at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, Dhaka
- 21 – Jason Roy at The Oval, London
In another significant achievement, Kohli overtook Chris Gayle in the total number of fifty-plus scores in T20 cricket. With 102 fifties and nine hundreds, Kohli’s tally of 111 fifty-plus scores now ranks second only to David Warner’s 117.
During the match, Kohli maintained an impressive strike rate of 166 before his dismissal at 70. His partnership with Devdutt Padikkal produced a crucial 95-run stand, with both batsmen accelerating between overs 11-15.
The victory was particularly significant for RCB as it marked their first home win of the season, taking their total to 12 points with five games remaining in their campaign.
For Rajasthan Royals, the defeat marked their seventh loss of the season, putting them in a challenging position requiring more than just two points from each of their remaining five matches to stay competitive in the tournament.
Kohli expressed satisfaction with the team’s performance, particularly their revised batting approach. “Pretty happy, we discussed a few things as a batting unit and applied ourselves well enough to get a total on the board. The first challenge here is to win toss and second half it becomes a bit of a advantage, we have been fighting hard to get a good score in the first few games, but the template today was for one guy to bat through and the rest of the batters can go attacking and today it really paid off,” Kohli said.
Kohli further elaborated on the team’s batting strategy. “There is pace and bounce in the first 3-4 overs, and I think we tried to force too many shots in the last 3 games, and today we let the ball come and adjusted ourselves, and we were able to capitalise on those. We figured out a way to bat now, and in the next few home games, we should be in a better position to get those extra 15-20 runs.”
Most 50-plus Scores in T20s
- 117 – David Warner
- 111 – Virat Kohli*
- 110 – Chris Gayle
- 102 – Babar Azam
- 95 – Jos Buttler
Virat Kohli jumps to second in Orange Cap race
B Sai Sudharsan of the Gujarat Titans continues to lead the run charts with 417 runs in eight matches, boasting an average of 52.12 and a strike rate of 152.18. Following closely is Kohli, who has risen to second place after scoring his second consecutive half-century, making 70 runs off 42 balls. He has accumulated a total of 392 runs in nine innings.
Nicholas Pooran of the Lucknow Super Giants, who started the IPL strongly and was the top run-scorer from Game 7 to Game 39, has slipped to third place with 377 runs from nine innings due to a rough patch.
In fourth place is Suryakumar Yadav from the Mumbai Indians, who has shown impressive consistency this season with 373 runs. Although he hasn’t had any major standout performances, he has recorded scores of 29, 48, 27*, 67, 28, 40, 26, 68*, and 40* without any significant failures.
Just behind Suryakumar are Jos Buttler of GT and Yashasvi Jaiswal, each with 356 runs. However, Buttler has played one fewer innings than Jaiswal, who had a slow start to the season but has bounced back with scores of 75, 51, 74, and 49 in his last four innings.
