Virat Kohli scored his fastest in the Indian Premier League with an aggressive knock that has put the Royal Challengers Bengaluru on course of defending their Indian Premier League title. The reigning champions are playing Gujarat Titans in the 2026 IPL final at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Kohli is batting on 54 off 28 balls after 12 overs. He reached his half century in only 25 balls.
Chasing a moderate target of 156, the batting maestro went hammer and tongs in the early overs of the RCB innings. The former RCB skipper specially targeted GT pace spearhead Kagiso Rabada against whom he fetched 19 runs in one over.
Thanks to Kohli's blistering innings RCB reached 116/4 in 12 overs leaving them needing only 40 more runs to win in remaining 48 deliveries.
Earlier, the RCB bowlers were successful in restricting GT to a sub-par score of 156/8. The 2022 champions never got going in their innings when they lost captain Shubman Gill and Sai Sudhsarsan, the team's two most prolific run-scorers of the season, inside four overs.
While Josh Hazlewood dismissied Gill for 10, Bhuvneshwar Kumar removed Sudhsarsan for 12. Both Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar ended up with two wickets each.
The pace duo got immense support from rising star Rashik Salam who bowled a brilliant spell of 3/27 and accounted for the wickets of Rashik Salam, Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan. Only a late unbeaten knock of 50 off 37 balls from Washington Sundar helped the team to go beyond 150-run mark.
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