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The first match of IPL 2025, which will be played between KKR and RCB at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on March 22, will be Virat Kohli’s 400th T20 match.
Virat Kohli set to join Rohit Sharma in elite list. (Picture Credit: PTI, X/@RCBTweets)
The 2025 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is set to start on Saturday (March 22) with a match between defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bengaluru. The match, which is set to take place at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, will be a special one for batting superstar Virat Kohli, as he will have a chance to join Rohit Sharma in an elite list of Indian players. The match between KKR and RCB will be Kohli’s 400th T20 match, and he will become only the third Indian cricketer after Rohit and Dinesh Karthik to make 400 appearances in the shortest format of the game.
Rohit, who will take the field for Mumbai Indians in IPL 2025, has played 448 T20s so far, whereas Dinesh Karthik, who retired from IPL last year, has made 412 T20 appearances till date.
Indians to play most T20 matches
- Rohit Sharma – 448
- Dinesh Karthik – 412
- Virat Kohli – 399
- MS Dhoni – 391
- Suresh Raina – 336
- Shikhar Dhawan – 334
- Ravindra Jadeja – 332
- Ravichandran Ashwin – 324
- Yuzvendra Chahal – 312
- Suryakumar Yadav – 309
Kohli, on the other hand, has played 399 matches and, with the help of nine centuries and 97 fifties, scored 12,886 runs.
Former West Indies captain and current Mumbai Indians batting coach Kieron Pollard holds the record for playing the most number of T20 matches. Since making his debut in 2006, Pollard has featured in 695 T20 matches for over two dozen teams.
In the list of players with most appearances in T20s, Pollard is followed by Dwayne Bravo (582), Shoaib Malik (552), Andre Russell (538), Sunil Narine (536), David Miller (519), Alex Hales (494), Ravi Bopara (478), Chris Gayle (463), Rashid Khan (462), Glenn Maxwell (459) and Rohit (448).
In his 400th T20 match, Kohli will also have a chance to complete 13,000 runs in T20 cricket. The all-time leading run scorer in IPL needs 114 runs in the first match of IPL 2025 to achieve the feat.
Most runs in T20s
- Chris Gayle – 14,562
- Alex Hales – 13,610
- Kieron Pollard – 13,537
- Shoaib Malik – 13,535
- David Warner – 12,913
- Virat Kohli – 12,886
- Jos Buttler – 12,113
- Rohit Sharma – 11,830
- James Vince – 11,647
- Aaron Finch – 11,458
So far, only one batter – Brendon McCullum – has scored a century in the first match of the IPL season. The former New Zealand captain achieved the feat while playing for KKR in the first match of IPL 2008 against RCB at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on April 18, 2008. Kohli will have a chance to join McCullum in the elite list. The former India and RCB captain has 962 runs to his name in 34 IPL matches played so far against KKR. If he scores at least 38 more runs, he will become the third player after David Warner (1093) and Rohit (1070) to cross the four-digit mark against the Kolkata-based franchise.