>Sunrisers Hyderabad deservedly won the Indian Premier League title and ruined Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Sunday night party in its backyard, Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. >Sunrisers captain David Warner marshalled his resources rousingly and also chipped in with 69 quick runs. Yet, even as he failed to clinch the final for RCB, the 2016 season undoubtedly belonged to skipper Virat Kohli. The Twenty20 format is configured for short bursts of drama, mostly to the batsmen’s advantage, so that the narrative of a T20 tournament is a cascade of rapid-fire innings, with one knock fading into the other. Often a batsman is as good as his last innings. It is in this context that Kohli showed his mastery over all formats of cricket by rewriting the record books. His 973 runs in 16 games came at a strike-rate of 152.03, and an average of 81.08, and were studded with four hundreds, each noteworthy in its own way. It is the highest individual tally in a season; at one point even 1000 runs seemed possible. With this Kohli became the most prolific run-getter in the nine-year history of the IPL, with 4110 to his name, ahead of Suresh Raina’s 4098. It was certain that Kohli would walk away with the accolades, and he bagged the ‘Orange Cap’ for maximum runs and also got the ‘Most Valuable Player’ award.
Not since Sachin Tendulkar’s explosive ‘Desert Storm’ knocks in Sharjah in 1998 has an Indian batsman left such a firm imprint on a limited-overs contest. In this year’s IPL, Kohli was in the zone, his bat a mere extension of his arm, pulling out shots at will that no fielding team could anticipate or limit. Kohli held centre stage, ahead of Chris Gayle and A.B. de Villiers, also part of RCB, but this is only part of the achievement. Throughout the tournament Kohli gained tempo, shepherded his team, destroyed bowlers with huge sixes and was always alert to the little gaps in the field through which he threaded boundaries. What makes it particularly remarkable is that this was a sportsman not simply validating his rising profile, but also raising the profile of the tournament itself. His four centuries came double-fast. The first, against Gujarat Lions, was reached in 63 balls, the second against Rising Pune Supergiants in 56, the third against Gujarat Lions in 53, and the fourth against King’s XI Punjab in just 47. His 54 runs in the final did not have the same impact, and it was the lone blip in a remarkable summer that Kohli and cricket will remember for long.
