Credit: IPL
On April 24, 2016, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batting legend Virat Kohli struck his maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) century in the contest against Gujarat Lions, in a match played at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium. Winning the toss, RCB elected to bat first but they lost Shane Watson early in the second over of the match. After the Aussie’s departure, Kohli and AB de Villiers stitched a 51-run stand off 36 balls for the second wicket. The Protean chipped in with 20 runs off 16 balls. Following his dismissal, KL Rahul came into the middle and supported Kohli, who was looking in brilliant touch with his bat.
Both produced a 121-run partnership off 74 balls for the third wicket and helped RCB post a total of 180 runs in 20 overs. On the final delivery of the innings, Kohli required four runs to score his first IPL hundred and he smashed Dwayne Bravo for a boundary and brought the century in 63 balls. His knock was studded with 12 boundaries (11 fours and a maximum). Rahul also amassed an unbeaten 51 off 35 balls.
Gujarat chased down the target and bagged a six-wicket win
GL started the chase in an aggressive manner with their openers Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Smith maintaining a 47-run partnership off only 32 balls. McCullum fell against Tabraiz Shamsi after making a vital contribution of 42 off 24. Dinesh Karthik stepped up in the game and took RCB’s bowling attack to the cleaners.
Riding on the wicketkeeper-batter's unbeaten 50 off 39, Gujarat achieved the target in 19.3 overs with six wickets in hand. Despite RCB’s defeat, Kohli became the recipient of the player of the match (POTM) award for scoring his stunning ton. After this hundred, the RCB stalwart went on to rack up three more centuries in the tournament and ended the season as the Orange Cap winner.
