DC Edit | Kohli’s Success Puts Grand IPL Show in Shade
The amazing advent of teenage talent Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who became the youngest batsman to score a T20 century in world cricket, was an unforgettable feature of the season
Tears of joy flowed freely from Virat Kohli at the finale of IPL 2025. In its 18th season, a lad who was barely 19 in the year in which the league was founded and wearing jersey No. 18 as the franchise’s most promising player won the cup for the first time for Royal Challengers, Bengaluru. He described it best in saying he gave his team his youth, his prime and his experience to bring about what proved to be a universally popular victory.
In these commercial times when players have freely chosen to move on from clubs to seek bigger contracts at IPL auctions, Kohli stuck to RCB in bad times and good, hoping to one day fulfil the ambition of the team from India’s IT capital to take the podium in the richest cricket league. And it came on a night in Ahmedabad in the nation’s biggest cricket stadium.
The sense of satisfaction could not have been more complete in so many cricket followers, including Kohli’s 300 million faithful on social media and a US rapper who is said to have taken a near million-dollar bet on RCB to win the cup. This was a celebration of Kohli’s loyalty and a dogged sense of purpose.
Up against Punjab Kings (PBKS), another team still searching for its maiden cup win, RCB stayed the course of an up-and-down final on a reluctant pitch with spinner Krunal Pandya proving the bowling ace with variations of pace to choke the chase of what seemed a gettable total. With inspirational skipper Shreyas Iyer failing in the final, it was up to local lad Shashank Singh to bring the team to within six runs of the target, even if his takedown of Josh Hazlewood came a tad too late.
The league may have been disrupted by the India-Pakistan conflict, but a high-scoring season continued unabated as 200-plus totals were recorded as many as 52 times in 74 games and 200-plus targets were chased down thrillingly nine times, including the one in an eliminator in which Shreyas Iyer defeated five-time champion Mumbai Indians in a calm and cool way. The best of bowlers had suffered for another season as batsmen invented ways to sustain their big hitting.
Given the mood of the nation, more than 90,000 spectators at the Narendra Modi stadium in Motera, Gujarat, were greeted to an IAF flypast decorating the air with tricolour vapour as a tribute to the part the armed forces had played in delivering a stern message on terror to Pakistan in Operation Sindoor. Had the jets been overflying when a game was on, they may have been in danger of being hit by a white projectile as batsmen routinely pummelled the ball for sixes.
The amazing advent of teenage talent Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who became the youngest batsman to score a T20 century in world cricket, was an unforgettable feature of the season. Representing a generation that will grow up on a full diet of T20 cricket, Vaibhav seems set for a very bright future. The season also threw light on many more of the young, talented and fearless variety of T20 players who will be dominating the scene for years to come.
The commercial success of the IPL was never in doubt as advertisers lined up to buy space to try and reach the country’s 400-million middle class with purchasing power. Tickets to the games, filled with off-field entertainment too, were like gold for most of the season until favourite teams started falling off the points ladder. Brand IPL has been a sustained hit but, in its 18th season, the iconic Virat Kohli may have overshadowed it with his and his team’s success.