Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 105 against Kolkata Knight Riders has added another remarkable milestone to his T20 record book, with the knock marking his tenth hundred in the format. That total is the highest by any Indian batter in men’s T20 cricket, and it also places Kohli among a very small group of players who have reached double figures in T20 centuries, with only Chris Gayle, Babar Azam and David Warner ahead of him in terms of the “ten or more” club.
Kohli’s rise in T20 batting numbers has been equally eye-catching. He needed 409 innings to get to 14,000 runs in the format, making him the fastest batter to the landmark. In doing so, he moved past Gayle’s 423-innings benchmark and also became just the sixth player overall to reach 14,000 T20 runs, while being the first to do it from India.
In the IPL, Kohli’s record continues to stack up. He has now amassed nine centuries in the league, which is two more than the next best total held by Jos Buttler (7). Notably, three of Kohli’s nine IPL hundreds have been made while chasing, and that figures puts him level with Buttler as the joint-highest for any batter in successful chases.
Longevity has been a major part of Kohli’s IPL story as well. He has appeared in 279 matches, the highest number of games for any player in the tournament. On Wednesday, he crossed the total reached by both MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma, who have each featured in 278 IPL encounters.
His impact isn’t limited to volume of runs, though. Kohli has collected 21 player-of-the-match awards in the IPL, a tally that is joint-best among Indians alongside Rohit. Across the league overall, only AB de Villiers (25) and Gayle (22) have more such awards than Kohli.
There’s also a distinct partnership angle behind Kohli’s chase success. The record shows 10 fifty-plus stands between Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal in successful IPL chases, the most by any pair. Together, they have added 1,035 runs across 14 successful chases in the competition, including four century partnerships.
Even the shot map from Kohli’s 105* carries context. He struck 46 runs through the midwicket region during his unbeaten innings, which is the most he has ever scored in that area in a T20 innings based on ball-by-ball logs. The data also indicates that only six batters have managed to score more through midwicket in an IPL innings than Kohli did in this one.
The venue adds another layer. Kohli’s 105* is the top score in 33 men’s T20 matches played at Raipur. Kane Williamson is the only other batter to have registered a T20 hundred at the venue, with 101* in 2014 during the Champions League T20 against Cape Cobras.
Perhaps the most striking momentum detail is how Kohli timed his return to form in the IPL. He became the first batter in the league to score a hundred after back-to-back ducks. He had recorded ducks in his previous two matches, against LSG and MI.
In T20 cricket history, five men had previously achieved a century following back-to-back ducks before Kohli did it in the IPL: David Warner (102* in 2011), Rilee Rossouw (100* in 2022), Rohit Sharma (121* in 2024), Sanju Samson (109* in 2024) and Hasan Nawaz (105* in 2025).
