“I surprised myself there” - When Virat Kohli looked back on his historic run after IPL 2016 final

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) ace batter Virat Kohli had a campaign for the ages when he won the Orange Cap in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2016 season after smashing an astonishing 973 runs in 16 matches. His sensational run came at an average of 81.08 and a strike rate of 152.03, also including four hundreds.

Prior to the 2016 campaign, Kohli had not scored a T20 hundred. The only time he was close to the three-figure mark was when he was stranded in the nineties on a couple of occasions.

He began the 2016 season with a couple of fifties, before recording his first IPL hundred against the Gujarat Lions in Rajkot. However, the unbeaten knock came in a losing cause. But his next three centuries in the campaign against the Rising Pune Supergiant, Gujarat Lions and the Kings XI Punjab (now renamed as the Punjab Kings), were all in winning causes, helping RCB finish second in the points table.

Kohli even recorded a fifty in the final against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), but it ended in vain as the Orange Army won by eight runs at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

After the final, Kohli spoke about his stellar run in the campaign, admitting that he surprised himself by scoring four hundreds in the space of a couple of months.

"I was hitting the ball well and I just wanted to keep contributing. If you try to do things for your team, you end up doing special things along the way. That's a lesson for me as a batsman and everyone around the world. I surprised myself there [with four hundreds in the tournament] little bit, to be honest. I opened the innings as well, we have to consider that someone batting at No. 3 or 4 will not be able to get as many runs so I don't take these things for granted," Kohli said after RCB lost the IPL 2016 Final to SRH (via ESPN Cricinfo).

Kohli's record run tally is yet to be eclipsed, but Jos Buttler managed to achieve the feat of scoring four hundreds in a single season during his stellar Orange Cap run for the Rajasthan Royals (RR) in IPL 2022.

"As a personal achievement this is very special" - Virat Kohli on winning the IPL 2016 Orange Cap

Even after a landmark historic campaign, Virat Kohli could not end up on the right side of the result in the final. It was the third time that RCB ended up losing the IPL final after their defeats in the 2009 and 2011 seasons in the early years of the competition. Since 2016, RCB have qualified for the playoffs four times, but are yet to make the final.

"It (orange cap) is a nice incentive with the way we have gone about this season but it doesn't feel really nice to be at the other side of the result. As a personal achievement this is very special knowing that we have eight teams with world-class batsmen. It feels nice to have scored more than anyone else more importantly so that we reached the finals and it gives me more pleasure than it would have otherwise," Kohli added.

The ace batter went on to win the Orange Cap for the second time in his IPL career after scoring 741 runs in 15 matches during the 2024 season. He is currently in the race to retain the award after scoring 505 runs in 11 matches in the 2025 campaign so far.