Introduction Indian cricket has produced many great IPL innings. Virat Kohli’s 973 runs in a season. Suresh Raina’s first-ever IPL century. MS Dhoni’s countless last-ball finishes. But until April 12, 2025, no Indian batter had ever scored more than 128 in a single IPL innings. That record fell when Abhishek Sharma, Sunrisers Hyderabad’s aggressive left-handed...
Introduction In October 2024, Prasidh Krishna was sitting out of cricket with a stress fracture in his back, wondering when — or whether — his bowling body would cooperate again. By June 2025, he had just taken 25 wickets in the IPL, won the Purple Cap, and been named the joint-best bowler in the competition’s...
Introduction Not every record-setter announces themselves with fireworks. Sai Sudharsan, Gujarat Titans’ 23-year-old left-handed opener, won the IPL 2025 Orange Cap with 759 runs in 15 matches at an average of 54.21 and a strike rate of 156.17. He did it not through one headline-grabbing innings but through a season of extraordinary consistency — the...
Introduction There is a moment in sport that stops everything — the scoreboard, the commentary, the crowd, even the game itself. When Vaibhav Suryavanshi raised his bat at Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur on April 28, 2025, after reaching three figures off just 35 balls, every person watching understood they were seeing something that had...
Introduction On June 3, 2025, at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Royal Challengers Bengaluru did something they had been trying to do for 18 seasons. They won the Indian Premier League. The emotion that followed — from Virat Kohli falling to his knees on the outfield, to 30,000 red-clad supporters in the stands losing...
Introduction Tens of millions of people watch the IPL final. The trophy is lifted. The Man of the Match is announced. The confetti falls. And then — silence. The IPL ends not with a press conference or a documentary but with an abrupt, practical transition: 220 cricketers return to their respective countries, their national coaches,...
Introduction On June 13, 2022, the BCCI announced the results of the IPL media rights auction for the 2023-2027 cycle. The total: Rs. 48,390 crore. Per match, this works out to approximately Rs. 118 crore per IPL match — more than any other cricket tournament in history and competitive with the most expensive broadcasting rights...
Introduction Eden Gardens in Kolkata is the world’s second-largest cricket stadium, with a capacity of approximately 66,000. It has hosted cricket since 1864. It was the venue for the first IPL match in history — McCullum’s 158* on April 18, 2008. It is the home of Kolkata Knight Riders. And it generates, on a sold-out...
Introduction What does it take to chase 261 in a T20 match? It requires an opening stand that obliterates the powerplay economy completely. It requires middle-order batting of supreme quality. It requires not losing wickets at inconvenient moments. It requires a team that genuinely believes, at 261 to win, that it is achievable. Punjab Kings...
Introduction The IPL auction, with its dramatic bidding wars and overnight millionaires, is cricket’s most exciting commercial event. Behind the scenes, the decisions that most shape franchise futures are not made during the auction — they are made before it, in the retention meetings where franchises decide which players to keep rather than release. Chennai...