Venkatesh Iyer IPL profile – a 360-word snapshot of Kolkata Knight Riders’ dynamic left-handed match-winner. Across five straight seasons with KKR, Iyer has hammered 1,468 runs from 1,069 balls, translating to a boundary every fourth legal delivery and a strike rate of 137. His 136 fours and 65 sixes light up the power-play and death overs alike, while 12 fifties and one scintillating 104 underline his consistency and ceiling. With 56 knocks under his belt, the Madhya Pradesh star has crossed fifty once every 4.7 innings and converted one of those into a 55-ball hundred, the highest score of his IPL career. Iyer’s value multiplies with his ability to open or float in the order, evidenced by his seamless adaptation to Eden Gardens’ true bounce and the slower tracks of the UAE. While bowling remains a secondary suit, his part-time seam has chipped in with three wickets in nine innings, including a best of 2 for 27, showing he can break partnerships when the captain needs a surprise option. From 2021 through 2025, the all-rounder has remained a KKR constant, a testament to the franchise’s faith in his explosive batting and developing utility. Numbers tell the story: 137 strike rate, 65 maximums, 12 half-centuries and a lone but memorable century – Venkatesh Iyer is KKR’s home-grown power engine and one of IPL 2025’s must-watch entertainers.

Chris Gayle IPL story: 13 seasons, 4 965 runs, 357 sixes and one unforgettable 175. The self-styled “Universe Boss” walked into IPL 2009 with Kolkata Knight Riders, but it was at Royal Challengers Bengaluru from 2011-2017 that he became a global T20 icon—belting 404 fours and 357 sixes overall at a jaw-dropping strike rate of 148. In 141 innings he cleared the rope once every 9.3 balls and produced 31 half-centuries plus six blistering hundreds, the most famous being his record 175* off 66 balls at the Chinnaswamy in 2013. After his Bengaluru fireworks, Gayle took his power game to Punjab Kings, turning up in orange from 2018 to 2021 and continuing to pepper boundaries with the same ruthless ease. While he rolled his arm over occasionally—18 wickets in 38 bowling innings—his narrative is written in soaring sixes and match-winning hundreds that re-defined T20 batting forever.

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