8 greatest IPL innings ever played

The Indian Premier League has always been a great source of entertainment. In 2018, the tournament enters its eleventh edition and this edition, just like every other season promises to be packed with thriller games and nerve wrecking matches. IPL has not just been a source of entertainment for the Indian audience, but the world looks up to IPL every year for the big source of entertainment that it is.

Every season of the IPL is a level better than the last one. Every year, the tournament makes us witness innings that make us wonder whether we’ll ever be able to see better ones. But IPL never fails to surprise us.

There have been innings which single-handedly swung the games in their teams’ favor. Here, we look at some of the greatest innings that have ever been played in the IPL:

8. David Miller, 101 (KXIP vs RCB,2013)

This is surely one of the greatest innings to have ever been played in the IPL. Royal Challengers Bangalore had set a target of 191 for Punjab. When Kings XI came out to bat, they did nothing but struggle. The batsmen just couldn’t find the meat of the bat. People had lost hope because the team was struggling miserably at a score of 64/4 in the tenth over. Then came in David Miller and played an innings that could well turn out to be the greatest innings of his career.

He gave the RCB a chance in the form of a catch but Virat Kohli dropped it. From there on, Miller didn’t look back. He went on to strike every bowler out of the park. No matter what the RCB’s bowlers tried, he just kept hitting them. Because of this performance, KXIP, from needing a seemingly unachievable amount of 130 runs in ten overs, went on to win the game in the 18th over.

Miller scored the third fastest century in IPL history. He scored 101 runs from 38 balls and lead the team to victory. KXIP was already struggling in the competition and this finally gave them something to cheer for. In fact, the impact of this innings was such that David Miller became a name in the world of cricket.

7. AB De Villiers, 47 (RCB vs DC, 2012)

An inning of 47 runs doesn’t generally make it to the list of the greatest innings ever, but this case is different. Who can forget the way AB De Villiers thrashed one of the best bowlers in the world, Dale Steyn, out of the park?

Royal Challengers Bangalore needed 38 runs from 18 balls. This might seem to be a pretty achievable target, but the problem was that out of these three overs, two of them were to be bowled by Dale Steyn. At this moment, he had figures of 2-1-7-1. In a T20 match, figures like these are priceless and any bowler would be proud of them, but Dale Steyn didn’t know what he was in for that day.

Of the 38 runs that the team needed, 23 of them were scored in the 18th over itself, courtesy of De Villiers. He smashed the great bowler out of the park and played some shots that are still fresh in the minds of the spectators. After all, it is not every day that you see a bowler like Dale Steyn being hit for 23 runs in an over. Because of this over, RCB didn’t need to face the 20th over. They won the game in the 19th over itself.

The pressure under which he played this innings of 47, the kind of bowling attack that he played this innings against and the way he thrashed the bowlers apart combined together warrants the place of this innings in this list.

6. Virender Sehwag, 119 (DD vs DC, 2012)

In IPL 5, Deccan Chargers were struggling badly and they had not won a single game at their home ground in a long time. In this match, the DC fans thought that they were in for a win as they had posted a target of 176 and as they had got DC at a score of 25/3 in the sixth over. But what they were in for was a huge defeat, not the hands of DC but at the hands of Sehwag alone.

Sehwag started playing his shots and soon, Deccan Chargers didn’t stand any chance whatsoever. He absolutely murdered a bowling line up that boasted of names like Dale Steyn, Ishant Sharma, and Amit Mishra. Sehwag was in the best of his form. One can estimate the kind of destruction he caused by the fact that he had a partnership of 61 runs for the 4th wicket with Travis Birt, and out of the 61 runs, only 4 were scored by Birt.

Sehwag went on to score a brilliant hundred. The fact that makes this innings even more special is that Delhi was in a ‘do or die’ situation before this game. They just had to win the game and Sehwag still managed to play the way he does.

5. AB De Villiers, 129 (RCB vs GL, 2016)

Fans would hardly be able to forget the innings that De Villiers played against Gujarat Lions in IPL 2016. Chris Gayle, who came out to open with Virat Kohli struggled throughout his short span in the middle and went back to the dressing room in the fourth over.

But then came AB De Villiers and turned the game into a nightmare for Gujarat and a delight for the RCB fans.

In his very first over, he launched Shivil Kaushik for a six over deep extra-cover and everyone knew that he was in the mood to kill the bowlers. He had come in the fourth over and RCB was struggling badly. At the end of the seventh over, it seemed as if they were right on the track.

De Villiers went on to hit 12 monstrous sixes, which was the highest number of sixes in an innings that season. He, along with Kohli helped the team achieve a total of 248 runs, which is the second highest total in IPL.

4. Virat Kohli, 109 (GL vs RCB, 2016)

Virat Kohli was arguably in his best form ever during IPL 2016. He was scoring hundreds like it was a joke. He scored four hundreds in the ninth season of IPL. This was a feat that nobody even imagined a player to achieve, in a T20 league.

The innings of 109 that he scored against Gujarat was his third century of the season and arguably best of them all. With this, he had become the only player to score three hundreds in a single season of IPL.

There are multiple reasons for this hundred to be the best out of the four. Throughout the innings, Virat played the role of a strike rotator as AB De Villiers was smashing bowlers all around the park from the other end. He was more focused on building a partnership after Gayle’s early departure.

At the end of 16 overs, Virat stood at a score of just 51. A hundred was nowhere on the list of possible prospects. But Virat went on to complete the other half of his hundred in just 13 deliveries. He even went to score a staggering 30-run over. He constructed a partnership of 229 with AB, which is the highest partnership in T20s.

3. Virender Sehwag, 122 (KXIP vs CSK, 2014)

Throughout the 7th season of IPL, Sehwag had been hitting the ball very well. He was able to find the middle of the bat but couldn’t convert the starts that he was getting into a big innings.

He managed to convert the start into a grand innings, and that too, when his team needed him the most. The KXIP were playing against CSK in the first qualifier of the season. Punjab had never played a final, but everybody was expecting them to make it to the finals this time as they had been dominating the entire season.

Sehwag went out there and it was a delight for every true Indian fan. He played such an innings that it forced Harsha Bhogle to say, “If you’re not watching this game, you don’t like cricket”.

He destroyed the CSK bowlers to such an extent that the only bowler to have an economy rate below 11 was Ishwar Pandey, and he too had an economy of 8.75.

Sehwag ended up with a score of 122 in 58 deliveries and rejuvenated the hundreds of memories that his millions of fans had in their hearts. He ended up hitting 8 giant sixes and 12 fours.

2. Suresh Raina, 87 (CSK vs KXIP, 2014)

CSK was chasing a mammoth target of 227 runs, courtesy of Sehwag’s 122 runs. Their walls were against the back as they had lost their first wicket at a score of just 1. Faf Du Plessis went out scoring a golden duck. Nobody thought that CSK had any chance. But then came in Suresh Raina.

Under an immense amount of pressure, Suresh Raina played an innings which is surely one of the best ever. He came out as if he was on a mission and started striking the bowlers all around. Within a few overs, the KXIP’s bowlers didn’t have any idea what to do. He was just toying with them.

Raina went on to score an innings of 87 runs in just 25 balls. One can imagine the kind of mood that he was in by the fact that in the 87 runs, he hit 12 fours and 6 sixes. In other words, out of the 87 runs, he scored 84 runs in boundaries. This fact in itself is mind-boggling.

He scored these runs at a strike rate of 348. Despite the mammoth total that KXIP had set, Raina had turned the odds in favor of CSK. Everybody believed they were going to win until he got run out.

Brendon McCullum called and then tried to send him back, but Raina couldn’t make it in time and the cricketing world was deprived of seeing what could well have turned out to be the best T20 innings ever played in a chase.

In fact, at the rate that he was playing, he would have probably broken the record of the fastest century which is held by Gayle when he scored his 30-ball century.

1. Chris Gayle, 175 (RCB vs PWI, 2013)

Everybody knows that Chris Gayle is a monster when it comes to batting. He is known for destroying the bowlers. But this innings took destruction to a whole new level altogether. Who can forget the day that Gayle made boundaries and the fielders look ridiculous at the Chinnaswamy stadium, Bengaluru.

Gayle scored a staggering 175 runs, a score that nobody thought was possible in a T20 match. The record innings helped Bangalore score a record total of 263/5. On his way to the monstrous score of 175, he hit 17 sixes. In the simplest of words, out of the 175 that he scored, 102 were scored in sixes. In fact, Chris Gayle was in no mood to forgive any bowler. He managed to cross the three-digit mark in just 30 deliveries.

This innings made the world realize that there is no limit to the destruction that Chris Gayle can cause in a cricket match. He just stood there in the middle and kept hitting the bowlers like they were nothing. TM Dilshan, who was the opening partner of Gayle was nothing but a spectator. It was an all-Gayle show that day.

There are some many other innings which deserve a mention - but a couple of them:

Brendon McCullum, 158 (KKR vs RCB, 2008)

AB De Villiers, 133 (RCB vs MI)