In eighteen seasons and more than 2,300 completed team innings of ball-by-ball IPL data (2008–2025), an opening batter has walked out to face the first ball, stayed for all 120 legal deliveries and walked back unbeaten just 90 times. That is roughly once every 26 innings. Brendon McCullum did it on the competition's opening night, 18 April 2008, with 158 not out from 73 balls. Chris Gayle did it on 23 April 2013 with the 175 not out that is still the highest score in IPL history.
The odd part is how little the feat guarantees. Teams whose opener batted through the full 20 overs won 50 of those 89 decided matches, or 56%. Batting first, they won 46 of 78, which is 59% against a 45.8% baseline for every team batting first in the same period. That is a real edge, but it is far from certain. KL Rahul made 112 not out for Delhi Capitals on 18 May 2025 and lost by ten wickets. Virat Kohli has batted through a full innings six times and won once. This is the record book of the batter who could not be got out, and of how often that still wasn't enough.
The Anatomy of Batting Through
What counts
The definition here is strict. The batter must be one of the two openers at the first ball. They must still be at the crease when the 120th legal delivery is bowled, and must never have been dismissed. Innings that finished early because a chase was completed are excluded: there were 198 unbeaten openers in successful chases, which is a different and much more common feat. One 2012 scorecard that shows Adam Gilchrist "unbeaten" on 40 from 30 balls in a 124/7 innings is also left out. A 30-ball stay inside a full 20 overs means he was not at the crease throughout, so the clean sample is 90.
Across those 90 innings the opener averaged 90.1 runs from 57.7 balls, a strike rate of 156.2. The team averaged 184.3, and the opener made 49.0% of it. On average, the batter who never got out scored about half his side's runs.
The first night and the highest night
The feat is as old as the league. On 18 April 2008 McCullum reached 50 from 32 balls and 100 from 53, finished 158* with 13 sixes, and took Kolkata Knight Riders to 222/3. Royal Challengers Bangalore were bowled out for 82, and the 140-run margin set the tone for what the competition would become. McCullum's 71.2% share of the total is still the highest of any opener who batted through.
Five years later Chris Gayle pushed the ceiling higher. Against Pune Warriors at the Chinnaswamy on 23 April 2013 he reached 50 in 17 balls and 100 in 30, and finished 175* from 66 balls with 13 fours and 17 sixes. RCB made 263/5, at the time the highest total in the competition, and won by 130 runs. Gayle batted through five times in all, more than any other overseas opener alongside David Warner, and his strike rate across those five innings was 191.1. Nobody else who did it more than once is close.
The partnership that never broke
Only once in the data have both openers batted through. On 18 May 2022 at the DY Patil Stadium, Quinton de Kock (140 from 70) and [KL Rahul](/players/kl-rahul) (68 from 51) took Lucknow Super Giants to 210/0. It remains the only IPL innings of a full 20 overs without the loss of a wicket. It then very nearly lost: Kolkata finished on 208/8 and Lucknow won by two runs. Eighteen seasons, one unbroken 20-over stand, and it was decided on the last ball.
When batting through is not enough
The list of defeats is the most revealing part of this record.
- Virat Kohli, 6 April 2024, Jaipur. 113* from 72 balls. His hundred took 67 balls, among the slowest in IPL history, and RCB finished on 183/3. Jos Buttler answered with an unbeaten hundred and Rajasthan Royals won by six wickets.
- Virat Kohli, 21 May 2023, Bengaluru. 101 from 61 in a must-win league game. RCB made 197/5. [Shubman Gill](/players/shubman-gill) made 104 in reply and Gujarat Titans won by six wickets, which put RCB out.
- Rohit Sharma, 14 April 2024, Wankhede. Rohit Sharma made 105* from 63 balls chasing 207 and was still there at the end. Mumbai Indians finished 186/6 and lost by 20 runs.
- Ruturaj Gaikwad, 23 April 2024, Chepauk. 108* from 60 balls, 50 in 28. Chennai Super Kings posted 210/4, Lucknow chased 213/4 and won by six wickets.
- KL Rahul, 18 May 2025, Delhi. 112* from 65 for 199/3. Gujarat Titans won by ten wickets, 205/0.
- Sachin Tendulkar, 15 April 2011, Wankhede. Sachin Tendulkar made his only IPL hundred, 100* from 66 balls, in a total of 182/2. Kochi Tuskers Kerala chased it down for the loss of two wickets.
These innings have something in common. In most of them the scoring rate of the batter who batted through set the ceiling for the whole innings. When an opener needs 60-plus balls to reach three figures, the side often finishes 15 to 25 runs below par, and the opposition has wickets in hand to make up the difference.
Data Deep-Dive
The top 15 scores by an opener who batted through
| # | Batter | Score | Team total | Opponent | Date | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chris Gayle | 175* (66) | 263/5 | Pune Warriors | 23 Apr 2013 | Won by 130 runs |
| 2 | Brendon McCullum | 158* (73) | 222/3 | RCB | 18 Apr 2008 | Won by 140 runs |
| 3 | Quinton de Kock | 140* (70) | 210/0 | KKR | 18 May 2022 | Won by 2 runs |
| 4 | KL Rahul | 132* (69) | 206/3 | RCB | 24 Sep 2020 | Won by 97 runs |
| 5 | Chris Gayle | 128* (62) | 215/1 | Delhi Daredevils | 17 May 2012 | Won |
| 6 | Manish Pandey | 114* (73) | 170/4 | Deccan Chargers | 21 May 2009 | Won by 12 runs |
| 7 | Virat Kohli | 113* (72) | 183/3 | RR | 6 Apr 2024 | Lost by 6 wkts |
| 8 | KL Rahul | 112* (65) | 199/3 | GT | 18 May 2025 | Lost by 10 wkts |
| 9 | Ruturaj Gaikwad | 108* (60) | 210/4 | LSG | 23 Apr 2024 | Lost by 6 wkts |
| 10 | Jos Buttler | 107* (60) | 224/8 | KKR | 16 Apr 2024 | Won by 2 wkts |
| 11 | David Warner | 107* (69) | 177/4 | KKR | 29 Mar 2010 | Won |
| 12 | Shikhar Dhawan | 106* (61) | 164/5 | Kings XI Punjab | 20 Oct 2020 | Lost |
| 13 | Ajinkya Rahane | 105* (63) | 191/6 | DC | 22 Apr 2019 | Lost |
| 14 | Rohit Sharma | 105* (63) | 186/6 | CSK | 14 Apr 2024 | Lost by 20 runs |
| 15 | Hashim Amla | 104* (60) | 198/4 | MI | 20 Apr 2017 | Lost |
Of the 28 hundreds made by openers who batted through, 16 were in winning causes. That is 57%, almost exactly the rate for the sample as a whole. Making a hundred and batting through did not shift the odds much beyond batting through on its own.
The repeat offenders
| Batter | Times batted through | Runs | Strike rate | Team won | 100s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shikhar Dhawan | 10 | 817 | 146.4 | 4 | 1 |
| KL Rahul | 9 | 865 | 158.1 | 6 | 5 |
| Virat Kohli | 6 | 571 | 155.6 | 1 | 3 |
| Ajinkya Rahane | 6 | 516 | 148.7 | 3 | 2 |
| Chris Gayle | 5 | 598 | 191.1 | 4 | 3 |
| David Warner | 5 | 439 | 147.3 | 4 | 2 |
| Brendon McCullum | 3 | 342 | 177.2 | 2 | 2 |
| Ruturaj Gaikwad | 3 | 297 | 166.9 | 1 | 2 |
| Shubman Gill | 3 | 246 | 166.2 | 2 | 0 |
Shikhar Dhawan leads the count with 10, across Deccan Chargers, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings, but his teams won only four of them. KL Rahul is the more productive version of the same type: nine innings, five of them hundreds, and six wins. Virat Kohli's one win in six is the starkest number in the table. The one RCB win came on 10 May 2015 at the Wankhede, when Kohli's 82* from 50 balls was the supporting act in a 235/1 total built around AB de Villiers.
Where the total landed
The size of the final total decides most of these matches. Among first-innings cases:
| Team total (batting first) | Matches | Batting side won | Win % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 170 | 21 | 9 | 43% |
| 170–189 | 22 | 12 | 55% |
| 190 and above | 35 | 25 | 71% |
An opener who bats through in an innings that finishes under 170 has, on average, made his side less likely to win than a typical team batting first. Holding one end only becomes a winning plan if someone scores quickly at the other.
Two eras
| Period | Innings | Opener strike rate | Avg team total | Team won |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008–2017 | 44 | 153.3 | 182.0 | 28 (64%) |
| 2018–2025 | 46 | 158.9 | 186.5 | 22 (48%) |
The frequency has hardly changed: 44 instances in the first ten seasons and 46 in the next eight. What has changed is how much the innings is worth. Openers who batted through after 2018 scored faster and their teams made more, yet the win rate fell from 64% to 48%. Par moved faster than these batters did. A 101* that wins a game in 2012 loses one in 2023, because 197 is no longer a match-winning score.
The lonely ones
The most solitary innings of this kind came on 9 April 2023 in Hyderabad. Shikhar Dhawan batted through for 99 from 66 balls while nine wickets fell at the other end. Punjab Kings were 143/9, and 55 of those runs came in a last-wicket stand of 31 balls with Mohit Rathee. Dhawan's 69.2% share of the total is the second-highest in the sample, behind only McCullum. Sunrisers Hyderabad still won by eight wickets. Buttler's 107 on 16 April 2024 saw eight wickets fall around him, but that one ended in a two-wicket win at Eden Gardens, chasing 224, with the final run on the final ball. Of all 90 innings, it is the clearest case of an unbeaten opener actually winning the match on his own.
Legacy Impact — What This Means Today
The batters who matter most here are still playing. KL Rahul at Delhi Capitals, Kohli at Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Gaikwad at Chennai, Gill and Buttler at Gujarat, Rohit at Mumbai and Ajinkya Rahane at Kolkata account for 31 of the 90 entries between them. Between them they hold both the most productive record of batting through (Rahul) and the least rewarded (Kohli).
What the data cannot settle is whether batting through is still worth aiming for. In a league that now regularly sees totals above 220, a set opener who scores at 140 for 20 overs may be holding his side back. The 2018–2025 win rate of 48% suggests the job has shifted from batting through to batting through at pace. Gayle's 191 strike rate was once an outlier. It increasingly looks like the requirement.
CricMind's Oracle does not model individual innings, but this is the kind of pattern behind its team ratings. A side's results reflect how fast it scores, not just how many wickets it keeps. Every pre-match call is locked before the toss and graded publicly on the leaderboard, so you can check whether the model gets those trade-offs right.
Three Takeaways
- The feat is rare and steady. It has happened 90 times in 18 seasons, about once every 26 team innings, and the rate has barely moved since 2008. Only once (de Kock and Rahul, 2022) have both openers survived a full 20 overs.
- It is an edge, not a lock. Teams won 56% of these matches overall and 59% when batting first, against a 46% baseline. The total decides the rest: 71% won at 190-plus, 43% under 170.
- Pace beats survival in the modern game. Since 2018 the win rate has fallen to 48% even as strike rates rose, and Kohli's one win in six innings is the clearest example.
FAQ
How many times has an IPL opener batted through all 20 overs unbeaten?
In the ball-by-ball record from 2008 to 2025 it has happened 90 times. That counts innings where an opener faced from the first ball, stayed for all 120 legal deliveries and was never dismissed. Completed chases that ended before the 20th over are excluded.
Who has batted through an IPL innings the most times?
Shikhar Dhawan, 10 times, ahead of KL Rahul (9), Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane (6 each), and Chris Gayle and David Warner (5 each).
What is the highest score by an opener who batted through an IPL innings?
Chris Gayle's 175* from 66 balls for RCB against Pune Warriors on 23 April 2013. It is also the highest individual score in IPL history.
Have both openers ever batted through an entire IPL innings?
Once. Quinton de Kock (140) and KL Rahul (68) took Lucknow Super Giants to 210/0 against KKR on 18 May 2022, and Lucknow won by two runs.
Does an opener batting through guarantee a win?
No. Teams won 50 of 89 decided matches (56%). KL Rahul's 112* in May 2025 ended in a ten-wicket defeat, and Virat Kohli's teams have won only one of the six games in which he batted through.
Which IPL team has had an opener bat through most often?
Two franchises share the lead with 15 each: Bengaluru (across its Bangalore and Bengaluru names, led by Gayle and Kohli) and Punjab (across Kings XI Punjab and Punjab Kings). Rajasthan Royals are next with 12.
Is the number of openers batting through increasing?
No. There were 44 instances from 2008 to 2017 and 46 from 2018 to 2025. The frequency is flat. The difference is that recent cases are worth less, with the batting side winning only 48% of them since 2018.