Approaching milestones for players in IPL 9 finals

The IPL 9 has reached its last stage and it is the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad, who have emerged as the top 2 teams in the tournament and will be fighting for the coveted trophy. Here are some of the approaching milestones, that either teams or the players from either teams could achieve during the final clash of the IPL season.

1. To begin with, whoever wins the tournament, it will be a new champion in the IPL history. The winners of the previous editions are:

Also read – IPL 9, Final Preview: Royal Challengers Bangalore on the brink of lifting premier title

2. Royal Challengers Bangalore opener Chris Gayle has a total of 8990 runs in his T20 career. If he gets 10 more runs tonight, he will become the first man in the history of T20 cricket to achieve the 9000 run mark. He has played 253 matches in his career so far and has the top score of 175* in T20 cricket. He has represented 17 teams in the format. Gayle has hit 695 fours and 650 sixes in his T20 career. Five more boundaries will make him the first man to hit 700 fours in the T20 history.

3. Chris Gayle has hit 243 sixes in the IPL history. 7 more sixes will make him the first player to hit 250 sixes in the history of the IPL.

4. His opening partner, Virat Kohli, has scored 49 half centuries in T20s. Another half century will make him the 3rd player after Chris Gayle (73) and David Warner (58) to score 50 half centuries in the shortest format.

5. Kohli has hit 597 fours and 198 sixes in T20 cricket. If he hits 3 fours and 2 sixes tonight, he will become the fifth player to reach the dubious distinction of hitting 600 fours and 200 sixes. Hitting 3 boundaries will also make him the fifth player to hit 600 fours in T20 cricket. If he does that, he will become the first Indian batsman to reach 600 fours landmark.

6. Kohli has another milestone approaching. He has hit 198 sixes in T20 cricket. If he hits two more sixes tonight, he will become the 23rd player in the history to hit 200 sixes.

Also check out – IPL 9, Final: RCB v SRH – Combined XI

7. Virat Kohli has hit 29 fifties in his IPL career. If he hits a fifty tonight, he will become the 4th player in IPL history to score more than 30 fifties after David Warner (33), Gautam Gambhir (31) and Rohit Sharma (30).

8. Virat Kohli has scored 919 runs in the 15 matches in IPL 9. His aggregate is the most by any batsman in a single edition of the IPL. If he hits 81 more runs, he will become the first ever batsman to reach 1000 runs in a single IPL edition.

9. Virat Kohli has hit 4 centuries in this season. If he scores one more century, he will join Chris Gayle with most centuries in the IPL history.

10. Virat Kohli has hit 354 boundaries in his IPL career. If he hits 7 more boundaries, he will surpass Suresh Raina’s tally of 360 fours and occupy the second spot in the list of most fours in the history of the tournament. Gautam Gambhir leads the tally with 422 fours.

11. V Kohli has an aggregate of 4056 runs in his IPL career. He needs 43 runs more to surpass Suresh Raina’s total of 4098 runs to become the leading run-getter in the history of IPL.

12. Virat Kohli has hit 145 fours in T20s in the year 2016. If he hits 5 more fours, he will become the first batsman to hit 150 fours in T20 cricket in a calendar year.

13. Kohli has hit 78 fours in the IPL 2016. If he hits 2 more fours, he will become 4th captain to hit 80 or more fours in a T20 tournament. James Vince of Hampshire scored 87 fours in Natwest T20 Blast in 2015, Sachin Tendulkar scored 86 fours in IPL 2010 for Mumbai Indians and David Warner has hit 80 fours in this edition of the IPL.

14. AB de Villiers has taken 19 catches in the tournament so far. If he takes another catch, it will take his total to 20 catches which would be a record for most catches taken in any T20 series in the history of T20 cricket.

15. AB de Villiers has hit 7 fifties in this season and another fifty will make him 3rd batsman after Virat Kohli (10) and David Warner (8) to hit 8 or more fifties.

16. David Warner has scored 779 runs in the season so far. 21 more runs will take him to 800 run mark and he will become only the second batsman after Virat Kohli to cross 800 run mark in a single season of the IPL.

17. Sunrisers Hyderabad pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar has bagged 23 wickets in this season so far. If he gets two more wickets tonight, he will become the fifth bowler to bag more than 25 wickets in a single edition of the IPL. Dwayne Bravo has achieved the feat twice.

Stats by HR Gopal Krishna