Venkatesh Iyer created history against Mumbai Indians on Sunday, 16 April. He has become the second batsman of Kolkata Knight Riders after Brendon McCullum to score a century in IPL. McCullum scored a brilliant 158 runs in the first match of IPL history. Since then, many batters have come close to reaching the three-figure mark for Kolkata Knight Riders but have failed. With this, Venkatesh Iyer has registered his name in another special list.
Venkatesh Iyer has become the 12th Indian batsman to hit 9 or more sixes in an inning in IPL. India’s Murali Vijay holds the record for most sixes in an inning. He has hit 11 sixes in an inning. Sanju Samson and Shreyas Iyer are second on this list, who have hit 10-10 sixes in an inning. At the same time, the record of hitting 9 sixes in an inning is in the name of 9 batters.
These 9 batsmen are- Venkatesh Iyer, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Sanju Samson, Robin Uthappa, Ishaan Kishan, Rituraj Gaikwad.
This season started with a good break for Venkatesh Iyer after failing to make an impact in the previous season. After being one of the players retained by Kolkata Knight Riders ahead of IPL 2022, he scored just 182 runs in 12 matches at an average of 16.55.
In this “Do or Die” season, Venkatesh Iyer took the responsibility directly on his shoulders. In the win against Gujarat Titans last week, Venkatesh scored an inning of 84 runs.
In the match played against Mumbai Indians on Sunday, Kolkata Knight Riders lost the wicket of N Jagadishan, then Venkatesh Iyer came. He was injured at the beginning of the innings itself. There was an injury just above his right knee. Despite this, he showed a stealer performance in the match against Mumbai Indians.
The Kolkata Knight Riders batsman hit his fifty in just 24 balls. After this, he took 25 balls for another fifty, which took 49 to score a century. Venkatesh Iyer hit 5 fours and 9 sixes in his brilliant century innings. Iyer played a brilliant inning of 104 runs in 51 balls, for which he received a standing ovation from the audience at the Wankhede Stadium.
