Virat Kohli won 18 years to win an Indian Premier League (IPL) title with Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and then, he suddenly won two in a row, hitting the winning runs with a six for the second one. Usually, that would be the biggest story at the end of an IPL season but this year, even an event like this can only share space with Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. The 15-year-old has been lauded by one and all this season and on Sunday evening, he could be seen having a long chat with Kohli.
Kohli could be seen putting his arms around Sooryavanshi before seemingly sharing some words of wisdom with the teenager. Kohli’s decorated senior career started a few years before Sooryavanshi was even born.
On Sunday, Kohli finished unbeaten on 75 off 42 balls and thus led RCB to a five-wicket win over Gujarat Titans. RCB have thus become just the third team after Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians to have won the IPL two years in a row. Kohli may be 37 years old and retired from T20 internationals, but Sunday’s knock ended what is arguably one of Kohli’s greatest ever season in his IPL career. He finished fourth in the Orange Cap table with 675 runs in 16 matches, scoring five half-centuries and a century. What stands out, though, is his strike rate. Kohli struck at 165.85 this season, which is far above the strike rates he has had at the end of any of the previous 17 seasons he has played in. It is made even more incredible by the fact that he averaged 56.25.
However, the Orange Cap was won by Sooryavanshi, making him easily the youngest winner of the award in the history of the IPL, as he rewrote the parameters of a good T20 innings this season. He missed out on centuries in the Eliminator and Qualifier 2 by a whisker, coming close to breaking Chris Gayle’s record for the fastest IPL century in the first of those. However, he did smash Gayle’s long-standing record for most sixes in an IPL season.
Overall, Sooryavanshi finished the season with 776 runs in 16 innings at a scarcely believable strike rate of 237.30 and average of 48.50 with one century and five half-centuries.
