CHENNAI: A T20 match going the full distance has 480 legitimate deliveries. So it feels a bit weird to focus on only 13 of those balls between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Gujarat Titans on Thursday night. The last time RCB played at the new Motera, they finally won the Indian Premier League at the 18th time of asking.
During various phases of the game at the same venue, they showed they remain favourites to go back-to-back. There were also various phases of the game why they will struggle to retain the title.
This new, more expressionist RCB began a year ago when they had a change of regime. Under this leadership group, a lot of their players have thrived. Some of them have found not only a higher ceiling but, more importantly, a higher floor.
Nowhere else is this change more evident than in the guy who bats up top for them. Virat Kohli. Pre 2025, he was one of the great accumulators in this format. But something seemed to hold him back from truly expressing himself. He was always his intense self but fun was incidental.
These days, he’s intent on marrying intensity with fun. Batting as high performance art while wearing floral shorts and sipping a drink at the beach. A kid with a mischievous streak at school. In previous batting avatars, there was something robotic about his batting. Like a Chatgpt version in an era when AI was mentioned in hushed tones in business meetings. These days, when the whole world is running on some form of AI, he seems intent on embracing the hedonist in him.
Which is why it’s important to savour it — and him — because nobody really knows how much longer the 37-year-old will be around for.
Under the lights at the new Motera, he lasted for all of 13 balls but it was still enough for him to produce a micro epic, the sort of innings you don’t mind missing a flight for. It began against Mohammed Siraj in the opening hour but it caught fire off Kagiso Rabada. On a surface with greenery but not the threatening variety, Rabada’s first delivery was banged into the surface. It sat up waiting to be hit and Kohli hit him over mid on. It was the short of somebody wanting to stamp their authority early doors.
Moments later, Kohli crashed a back of a length ball outside off over mid off. There was no attempt to keep it down and it brought the crowd to their feat. They were home fans but when royalty is playing in your backyard, partisanship can be put on hold.
If the teasers were good, the main course took the breath away. The South African overcompensated by going fuller but Kohli was waiting as he square drove this to the right of backward point. Off the fourth ball, he opened the face of the bat and ran it down to the left of backward point for another four.
Shubman Gill had already developed a few creases on his forehead in the space of four balls but it was about to expand. Off the next ball, another that was outside off and inviting the drive, Kohli crashed it via cover. Five balls. Five boundaries.
The atmosphere in the stadium had become electric. Which was kind of strange because their team was already feeling some pain.
He couldn’t complete the full set but the fireworks weren’t done. Three balls later, he met a length ball off Siraj down the track before sending it over mid on for six. The fun, though, finished next over as Rabada again banged it in short. This time he got the proper bounce and an over-committed Kohli ended up splicing it to square leg.
One of the greatest 28s ever scored by a batter had come to a quiet end; an anti-climax. A great pilot had been rudely cancelled but there was some post credits as well. When Jason Holder successfully claimed a Rajat Patidar catch, an animated Kohli was already gesticulating to the umpires that he had grassed the catch. Even a few overs after he had been dismissed, the opener was yet to remove his pads. RCB eventually scratched their way to 155 all out. In response, GT started well before crumbling, losing wickets in regular intervals. Titans eventually prevailed.
Brief scores: Royal Challengers Bengaluru 155 all out in 19.2 ovs (Padikkal 40, Kohli 28; Arshad 3/22) bt Gujarat Titans 158/6 in 15.5 ovs (Tewatia 27 n.o, Gill 43, Buttler 39; Bhuvneshwar 3/28).