The pair led their team to victory by nine wickets with a partnership of 166 runs in just 73 balls.
In just a few overs, Virat Kohli and Will Jacks turned what was supposed to be a difficult 201-run chase for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) against the Gujarat Titans (GT) into a child’s play. With their amazing six-hitting, the 2022 champions’ spin trio of Rashid Khan, Noor Ahmed, Sai Kishore, and pacer Mohit Sharma were all but destroyed. They brought back memories of Virat and AB de Villiers’ heroics in the 2016 season against the now-defunct Gujarat Lions, when they both struck hundreds and put on a 229-run partnership for the second wicket, sending the fans down memory lane.
The duo scored 166 runs in 73 balls to lead their team to a nine-wicket victory. Virat slammed an unbroken 70 in 44 balls, with six fours and three sixes to keep one end steady, while Jacks unleashed unimaginable carnage after reaching his fifty in 31 balls, blasting five fours and ten sixes on his way to a century in 41 balls.
Jacks required only 10 balls to turn a half-century into a match-winning ton. This is the shortest time a player has taken to reach 100 in the IPL. The previous record was set by Chris Gayle, who took only 13 balls to convert his half-century into a ton, reaching three figures in just 30 balls against the now-defunct Pune Warriors in 2013.
Only once in the history of the IPL has RCB chased 200 or more runs, and that was fourteen years ago. Over the years, the Red and Gold team has provided a stage for superstar batters like Virat, Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Faf Du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell, Kevin Pietersen, and others to demonstrate their shown, world-class ability for the team, yet this disparity persisted. In March 2010 against Punjab Kings, Jacques Kallis (89) and Robin Uthappa (51) led RCB to a successful chase of 204 runs, their previous 200-plus run chase.
-RCB is the first team in the IPL to win by nine or more wickets after chasing more than 200 runs.This thrilling team was down to 24 balls when Jacks hit a massive six to secure his century and the team’s third win. This victory over RCB in 2023, when they had 23 balls left while pursuing 200 runs, is now the greatest win in the history of the IPL (and the joint-largest in all of T20 cricket).With class and consistency that he hasn’t showed against spinners in a long time, Virat delivered his absolute best game against them, smashing Rashid, Noor, and Sai.
A different Virat showed up for this encounter; he is known to attack pacers over spin. Out of his 70 runs, he made the most against spin in a single T20 innings—61 of them. In the Indian Premier League, his strike rate of 179.41 against spinners was also his third-highest, behind 240.90 against Punjab Kings (scoring 53 in 22 balls out of a total of 113 in 50 balls) and 188.46 against Gujarat Lions (scoring 49 in 26 balls out of a total of 109 in 55 balls) in 2016.
In the IPL 2024, Afghanistan’s T20 hero Rashid Khan continued his terrible streak after taking a crushing defeat. Virat took a single in the sixteenth over, and Jacks then went all out, smashing 6,6,4,6,6 in the following five balls to take 29 runs from the over. In all of T20 cricket, this is Rashid’s most costly over.
-Jacks struck for 95 runs in the middle overs (seven to sixteen overs), which is the third-highest total by a hitter in an IPL middle overs innings. The two previous high scorers in this period were Gayle (105 runs) against PWI in 2013 and Virender Sehwag (107 runs) against Deccan Chargers in 2011.
Virat has scored 500 runs or more in seven different seasons. He is the only player to accomplish this accomplishment after David Warner and the first Indian to do it.
-Jacks has scored four T20 hundreds in 50 or less balls; his fastest came in 41 balls while playing for Pretoria Capitals versus Durban Super Giants (DSG) in the SA20 2024. In T20 cricket, Gayle (10), Maxwell (5), and Suryakumar Yadav (4) are the only players with four or more hundreds off fifty or less balls.
Before the game, half-centuries from Shahrukh Khan (58 in 28 balls, with three fours and five sixes) and Sai Sudarshan (84 in 49 balls, with 12 fours and four sixes) helped GT get past a sluggish start at bat. GT reached 200/3 in 20 overs thanks to David Miller’s helpful 26* in 19 balls with two fours and a six.Mohammed Siraj, Maxwell, and Swapnil Singh each claimed a wicket.
In the run chase, captain Faf Du Plessis went early with a score of 24 in 12 balls, including three sixes and a four, but Jacks and Virat produced a memorable partnership to win the match for their team. Jacks won the title of “Player of the Match.” RCB, with three victories, seven defeats, and six points, is in the bottom. GT has eight points, six losses, and four victories, placing it in seventh place.
