IPL 2024: Rahane's boundary rope brilliance sends Kohli back in the hut

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batter Virat Kohli didn’t have a memorable outing on his return to the cricket pitch after three months during the opening game of Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Friday, March 22. Kohli failed to get going in his innings as he could only score 21 (20) and got caught at deep mid-wicket due to the fielding brilliance of Ajinkya Rahane and Ravindra.

On the second ball of the 12^th over of the innings, Kohli shuffled towards the off side against Mustafizur Rahman to pull the ball towards deep mid-wicket. However, the right-handed batter failed to time it well as Ajinkya Rahane completed a terrific catch covering good ground.

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The veteran cricketer further showed great presence of mind by getting rid of the ball before crashing into the boundary and Rachin Ravindra completed the relay catch. As a result, Kohli had to make his way back towards the pavilion leaving RCB in all sorts of trouble at 77/4 after 11.2 overs.

Watch the catch here:

Kohli became first Indian to score 12000 T20 runs

Earlier, Kohli became the first Indian to score 12,000 runs in T20 cricket as he achieved the milestone after scoring the first six runs of his innings. The star batter now has 12015 runs in the 20-over format from 360 innings at an average of 41.14 and a strike rate of 133.42 with eight hundreds and 91 fifties. He also became the second fastest batter to achieve the milestone after Chris Gayle who achieved it in 353 innings.

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Meanwhile, Mustafizur Rahman ran through the RCB top order and left them reeling at 78/5 after 11.4 overs. The left-arm seamer picked up wickets of Faf du Plessis (35 off 23), Rajat Patidar (0 off 3), KOhli and Cameron Green (18 off 22) to register figures of 4/29 in four overs.