Craig Overton made a short but explosive cameo in his IPL 2025 debut with Chennai Super Kings. Across two innings, the English all-rounder hammered 15 runs from just seven balls—an eye-watering strike-rate of 214. He cleared the ropes once, smashed one four and posted an unbeaten 11*, showing the finishing touch CSK craves at death overs. With the ball, Overton sent down 36 deliveries without picking up a wicket, conceding 83 runs at an economy of 13.83. While his three-over spells were expensive, the numbers underline a bowler trusted to operate in the powerplay and slog overs where risk is often rewarded. In only one season, Overton’s bat has already spoken louder than his ball—two innings, one maximum, one boundary and a strike-rate above 200—marking him as a late-overs hitting option for the five-time champions.

Virat Kohli is the undisputed batting king of the Indian Premier League, a Royal Challengers Bengaluru lifer who has turned loyalty into legend across 18 electrifying seasons from 2008 to 2025. With 8,661 runs off 6,519 balls, Kohli is the league’s highest-ever run-getter, firing at a strike rate of 132 and painting every corner of every ground with 771 fours and 291 towering sixes. His 63 half-centuries and 8 hundreds—topped by a blistering 113*—tell the story of a man who converts starts into statements, walking in 259 innings and delivering a match-defining fifty or hundred in roughly one out of every four trips to the crease. While he has rolled his arm over occasionally, claiming four wickets from 26 bowling innings, it is with the bat that Kohli has authored the IPL’s most enduring chronicle, forever clad in the red and gold of RCB.

Note: This overview is partially generated using AI and is based on statistical data. Please verify with official sources for complete accuracy.