In Sydney in January 2004, Sachin Tendulkar produced a stunning effort in the last of four Tests against Australia, the knock that lifted his Test tally to his highest score at the time. His unbeaten 241 stood out less for the rare flamboyance he unleashed and more for the basic, repeatable ball that he refused to chase. The message was clear: he wouldn’t be lured into the same traps again.
For the first part of the first three Tests, Tendulkar had been drawn into driving outside off and nicking it away, a pattern that cost him control. Ahead of the SCG showdown, he made a decisive call—on that ground, the offside was not a run-making channel for him. Executing such a plan against elite bowling is never easy, yet Tendulkar’s discipline held, and he still ended up with a strike-rate of 55.27 over 436 deliveries, proving intent can be as valuable as timing.
At a glance
- Sachin Tendulkar scored 241* at the SCG in January 2004 versus Australia, his highest Test score then.
- Tendulkar’s plan involved neutralising offside scoring after earlier dismissals for driving outside off and nicking.
- Virat Kohli, in the IPL final at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday night, finished 75* after starting his innings with 38 on the onside.
- Royal Challengers Bengaluru defended their title, becoming the third team to do so after Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians.
- Bengaluru restricted Gujarat Titans to 155/8, with Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood leading the bowling.
- Kohli’s 75 included his fastest IPL half-century off 25 balls; he also suffered a leg muscle injury mid-innings.
That same kind of game-awareness showed up in a different era on Sunday night at the Narendra Modi Stadium. In the final against Gujarat Titans, Virat Kohli replicated the “change what you can control” blueprint, though through his own attacking language. His first 38 runs came entirely on the onside, while only seven were added through the offside as he finished unbeaten on 75.
The innings read like a compact study in wristwork and conviction—flicks and whips, sharp pulls, and majestic straight hits that repeatedly forced the field to adjust. The impact was enough to earn him the Player of the Final award, as Royal Challengers Bengaluru became just the third franchise—after Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians—to successfully defend an IPL title.
Bengaluru’s bowling set the chase up for them, with a disciplined unit that looked settled from the start. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood, in particular, spearheaded the effort and kept Gujarat Titans pinned to 155 for eight—at least thirty runs shy of what would be considered a truly competitive total in typical circumstances. With the pitch offering little drama on the surface, the required run-rate hovered just under eight, making the task seem almost manageable.
So, the script initially looked like it belonged to the anchor—Kohli as the stabiliser, the calm engine that brings a defence home. But the “2.0” version arrived again, not to soften the chase, but to crush it early.
Instead of waiting for the innings to develop, Kohli went straight after the new-ball barrage. He took on Mohammed Siraj and Kagiso Rabada with ruthless certainty, repeatedly targeting the leg-side boundary when the bowlers delivered straight lines. With Venkatesh Iyer adding his share, Bengaluru kept closing in on the target aggressively from the front.
Kohli’s surge and the injury moment
Even when wickets started to fall around him—Venkatesh and Devdutt Padikkal departing in consecutive overs, followed by Rajat Patidar and Krunal Pandya being removed in the same Rashid Khan over—Kohli didn’t dial back. The intensity stayed locked in, and his momentum only sharpened midway through the chase.
At one stage, Kohli picked up what Ravi Shastri described as a leg muscle injury. Yet there was no visible wobble in his approach. If anything, his expression suggested sharper determination—like a batter deciding he would not allow discomfort to rewrite his role in the final. He pushed on to the result that defined the innings: the fastest IPL half-century of his career, reaching the mark in only 25 deliveries.
That milestone came with a wider context to his numbers. Kohli has 68 IPL half-centuries overall and nine hundreds, but this one carried the extra weight of timing and urgency in a title defence. The chase wasn’t merely finished—it was stamped with authority.
From redemption to record-chasing
Kohli has never been a weak option when batting first, but the difference in his temperament when there is a target in front of him is usually night-and-day. This time, the controlled intelligence that often comes with successful chases gave way to something more frenetic—an onslaught that felt less like routine scoring and more like a set of personal accounts being settled.
IPL finals have repeatedly brought Kohli moments of heartbreak, and even when Bengaluru lifted their maiden title last year, he looked restricted, labouring through an innings-high 35-ball 43. On Sunday, he swung the pendulum in the other direction, setting an IPL record with a knock that demanded attention and reinforced his reputation as the sport’s premier chaser in the white-ball era.
It was also the second time in three attempts that Kohli has mastered a T20 final. The first came in June 2024 when he played against South Africa in the T20 World Cup. Before that title match, Kohli’s tournament had been an unflattering 75 runs, a return that felt especially underwhelming for a player of his calibre.
Even in the final itself, his rhythm never truly clicked. His fifty arrived off 48 balls, which was the second slowest fifty in a T20 World Cup final, and by far his slowest in that setting. Still, Kohli found the adjustment that mattered most—he added 26 runs from his next 11 deliveries, accelerating when it counted.
His final total of 76 was the highest score in a final India somehow won by seven runs, and it brought him the Player of the Final award. The moment carried the feeling of redemption, a theme that returned in Bengaluru’s story on Sunday.
Looking ahead to the IPL 2026 final, Kohli arrived with an imposing run haul—600 runs in total—at a strike-rate above 160. He acted as both the centrepiece and the enforcer, the steady structure around which Venkatesh and Padikkal, Patidar and Tim David, along with Krunal Pandya, were able to operate. Unlike the slower phase he once showed at the Kensington Oval, Kohli was the destroyer at the Narendra Modi Stadium—charging himself up for the occasion and leaving no doubt about who controlled the show.
And once that mindset took over, there was really no reason to expect anything else.
