could notcould notAs the Royals win four out of four, Buttler’s sixth century surpasses Kohli’s eighth.

IPL 2024 began with Rajasthan Royals leading four from four after a convincing six-wicket victory. It saw off Virat Kohli’s seventh IPL century. At the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur on Saturday, Jos Buttler’s undefeated sixth IPL century—achieved off the last ball of the chase. Sanju Samson’s brisk half-century helped the Royals cross the finish line with five balls remaining. For the third time, Kohli’s century in the Indian Premier League ended in a defeat.

The quality of Kohli’s innings?

Kohli’s IPL hundreds have been better and more fluid than others. Due in part to the somewhat sticky pitch in the opening half of the game, his innings were filled with shots that he was unable to time as effectively as he would have wanted. Although there was a clear intention to assault, not all of his shots were as successful. He would have wanted. He reached the three-figure milestone in 67 balls, which is the joint-slowest time by any player in IPL history.

Nevertheless, he got rolling quickly and was dominating terms in the powerplay. He blasted Nandre Burger over the mid-on zone for a boundary in the second over. It set up an acceleration, and then he flipped another four through square leg. There he scored over three-quarters of his runs. His most fruitful location was the space between deep square leg and deep mid wicket. In the pacer’s subsequent over, he even hit Burger for a six, giving RCB a commanding lead.

Though he got off to a fast start and kept up their scoring rate, Kohli stated following his innings that they had to recalculate the attempted total from 190 to 180 with one of the set openers batting until the very end because the pitch wasn’t as flat as it appeared from the outside. The royals had clever methods as well. While the spinners also altered their pace and forced the batsmen to smash towards the longer boundary, the pacers constantly removed pace and delivered the short of decent length.

Kohli did occasionally succeed in hitting a couple boundaries. Against Avesh Khan, he was very effective in the last overs. He struck straight down the ground, sliced his yorker square of the wicket, flicked him past mid wicket, and even hit through the cover region for boundaries. Even though Kohli scored his joint-highest T20 total, RCB was limited to 183 for 3 because he failed to pick up the additional runs when he was approaching his century and did not have the same success against Burger in the last overs.