Virat Kohli punched on the backfoot by former Pakistan pacer after shameful record vs Rajasthan Royals

Published - 07 Apr 2024, 01:47 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 10:29 PM

Virat Kohli and Junaid Khan
Left: Virat Kohli after scoring his first IPL 2024 ton. Right: Junaid Khan during a franchise match

Senior India batsman and Royal Challengers Bengaluru opening batter Virat Kohli scored a century last night but it appears that he is being trolled more than being appreciated for the knock. The main reason behind it is the number of balls he took to his 8th reach triple-figure score in Indian Premier League history.

His 67-ball 100 is now the joint-slowest century ever in IPL and former Pakistan pacer Junaid Khan, who had a fierce rivalry with Kohli during the former's playing days, brutally trolled the latter for his innings.

Virat Kohli, who is just 8 games away from playing his 250th IPL match, was the sole fighter and the lone wolf from RCB's perspective last night.

In a match where the batting unit should have stepped up and complimented Kohli from the other end, they went inside a shell and continued to showcase their immature shot selection and unreliability in the middle.

The other notable performer from the South Indian franchise was RCB's skipper Faf du Plessis, who departed from the crease after scoring 44 off just 33 balls.

RCB's poor support system

du Plessis had stitched this season's highest first-wicket partnership of 125 runs along with Virat Kohli but the RCB middle-order wasn't able to get the team to a good finish. The likes of Glenn Maxwell, debutant Sourav Chauhan, and Cameron Green had underwhelming performances as they got out for 1 off 3, 9 off 6, and 5 off 6 respectively.

And despite that 100, all that Kohli could help RCB achieve was 183 which at first looked competitive but when the RCB bowlers got down to do the job, the target of 184 never looked safe. The visitors fell at least 20-30 runs short and that cost them the entire game.

Junaid Khan congratulates Virat Kohli for his slowest IPL century

With his 67-ball 100 last night at the Sawai Mansingh stadium in Jaipur, Virat Kohli emulated the feat achieved by former RCB batter Manish Pandey back in 2009.

Pandey, who is the first Indian batsman to score a ton in the IPL, had also taken 67 balls to reach triple figures against Deccan Chargers (present-day Sunrisers Hyderabad).

Kohli is now the joint-slowest IPL hundred scorer with Pandey and behind them are Sachin Tendulkar, David Warner, and Jos Buttler, who scored a century off 66 balls.

That inning from Kohli intrigued Junaid Khan and the Pakistani took to X and wrote, "Congratulations Virat Kholi on the slowest 💯 in the history of IPL #RRvRCB #IPL2024."

The former left-arm pacer might have been in a mood to troll but what he didn't notice was that he didn't spell "Kohli" correctly and instead wrote Kholi.

By digging deep, one will find out that Junaid Khan had some sort of bad blood with Virat Kohli when the former was still an active player. Khan had Kohli's numbers in the 50-over format. The pacer had got him out on 3 occasions from 24 balls and Kohli had scored just 3 runs against him.

Tagged:

Virat Kohli Junaid Khan Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) Rajasthan Royals (RR) IPL 2024