Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli thanked the franchise and called it an ‘honour’ for him as he became the first-ever cricketer to play the 200th game for one single team during match 31 of IPL 2020 against Kings XI Punjab at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Thursday.
Notably, Virat Kohli is featuring for the 185th time for RCB in the Indian Premier League (IPL) so far, while he also has 15 Champions League T20 (CLT20) outings to his name. He’s spent his entire career with Bangalore in both the tournaments.
Virat Kohli was snapped by RCB in the 2008 IPL auctions and since then the Indian skipper has accumulated 5668 runs at an average of 38.55 and strike rate of 131.41. He’s scored five hundreds and 38 fifties as well.
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“We’ll bat first. It looks like a dry surface and got considerably slower the last night. We saw in the second innings there was no dew and it was gripping,” RCB skipper Virat Kohli said after winning the toss.
In the words of Captain Kohli, “Loyalty above everything.”@imVkohli plays his 200th match for RCB tonight. #PlayBold #IPL2020 #WeAreChallengers #Dream11IPL #RCBvKXIP pic.twitter.com/4DAy6wUqPC
— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) October 15, 2020
“RCB means a lot, not many understand that emotion. 200 games for them is unbelievable, I wouldn’t have believed it in 2008. It is an honour, they’ve kept me and I have stayed on,” Kohli added.
“When the team wins you look good as a captain. There have been many individuals who have put their hands up even after two losses. It’s only halfway and we have to keep it up.
“The most important thing is to focus on your own skillset. Even in the biggest ground in the world people score 220. There is no given in cricket and we just want to carry on. We are unchanged,” Kohli signed off.
Virat Kohli won the toss and opted to bat in Sharjah. Out of the 6 matches played here, the team batting first has won 5 times.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Playing XI): Devdutt Padikkal, Aaron Finch, Virat Kohli(c), AB de Villiers(w), Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube, Chris Morris, Isuru Udana, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal
Kings XI Punjab (Playing XI): Chris Gayle, KL Rahul(w/c), Mayank Agarwal, Nicholas Pooran, Glenn Maxwell, Deepak Hooda, Chris Jordan, Murugan Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh