Varun Chakravarthy has become the mystery spinner Kolkata Knight Riders refuse to release. Across seven IPL seasons—six with KKR and his 2019 debut with Punjab Kings—the Tamil Nadu leg-spinner has pocketed 100 wickets in just 83 bowling innings. His economy rate of 7.58 runs per over is built on 1,888 balls of relentless pressure, and every 18.88 balls he strikes again. The 31-year-old has turned games on their heads eight times with three-wicket bursts and once produced a magical 5-wicket haul that still echoes in IPL folklore. While his batting card shows only 26 runs from 47 balls, those numbers underline a man hired to bamboozle, not belt. With KKR retaining him from 2020 through the 2025 auction, Varun Chakravarthy remains the Purple spin king Eden Gardens trusts to defend totals and shatter chase scripts.

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.