Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) captain Virat Kohli on Monday became the first cricketer to appear in 200 games in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for a single franchise. He achieved the feat during RCB's match against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
Kohli has been at RCB since IPL's inaugural season in 2008, playing 191 innings for the franchise, to score 6076 runs at 37.97 and strike rate of 130.41. The run tally includes 40 half-centuries and five centuries.
This is also his 133rd match as the captain of the franchise, winning 60 of them while losing 65. The remaining seven matches either ended in a tie or were abandoned.
Overall, this is Kohli's 215th game for RCB, as he has played 15 games for RCB in the now-defunct Champions League T20.
The 33-year-old joined the likes of MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma in the elite 200 IPL list. He became the fifth player to enter the club with Dhoni (211), Rohit (207), Dinesh Karthik (203), and Suresh Raina (200) ahead of him in the list.
Interestingly, Kohli would have achieved this feat much earlier in the year before the COVID-19 outbreak inside the IPL bubble brought the tournament to halt on May 2; subsequently postponing KKR vs RCB encounter originally scheduled on May 3, 2021.
RCB, who enjoyed a strong first phase of the IPL 2021, currently sit 3rd in the points table with 10 points in seven games.
