Tilak Varma has quietly grown into one of IPL’s most explosive young batters, stacking 1,499 runs in just four seasons with Mumbai Indians. Opening or floating in the middle order, the left-hander has faced 1,038 balls and smashed them at a scorching strike-rate of 144. Translation: every seven balls fetch at least one boundary, be it one of his 113 fours or 74 sixes. His fifty-plus scores already read eight, with a best of 84 not out, showing he can anchor or accelerate at will. More importantly, all the damage has come in only 51 innings; that is nearly 30 runs per knock and a boundary every other over. The numbers underline why MI have kept the Hyderabad prodigy in their core since 2022. While he has rolled his arm over occasionally—22 balls, 28 runs, no wickets—the story is overwhelmingly about the willow. In an era where 140-plus strike-rates define match-winners, Varma’s 144 slots him among the league’s elite finishers. Expect the tally of 1499 to race past 2,000 as he enters his prime seasons at the Wankhede cauldron.

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.