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Kohli’s ninth IPL hundred powers Royal Challengers Bengaluru to the top
After back-to-back ducks in his last two innings, Virat Kohli showed most emphatically that he had merely been out of runs and not out of form, scoring his ninth IPL hundred to lead Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) to the top of the IPL 2026 table with a commanding win over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Raipur.
Kohli’s unbeaten 60-ball 105 was a vintage effort in a run-chase – smooth, controlled, and full of both relentless sprinting between the wickets and gorgeous strokeplay, particularly at either end of his innings. That he never seemed stretched, however, was perhaps the story of the match – it may have been decided by the relative quality of the bowling attacks, particularly the seamers.
RCB’s bowlers did a superb job to keep KKR down to below 200 even though they only lost four wickets, and KKR’s inexperienced seam attack simply couldn’t match them for discipline and ability to extract misbehaviour from a slightly two-paced surface – with the caveat that it may have eased up a little during the second innings.
This was the first time RCB had fielded all three of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jacob Duffy and Josh Hazlewood – the legspinner Suyash Sharma made way. This suggested RCB expected conditions to play similarly to their previous game in Raipur, against Mumbai Indians, with seam movement and inconsistent bounce throughout.
When the match began – after a rain delay of an hour and a quarter – it became clear that this was a much better pitch to bat on, but there was still something in it for the seamers. Bhuvneshwar showed this with a cross-seamer that nipped away to nick off Finn Allen in the third over, and Hazlewood showed this by getting a short-of-length ball to rear at Ajinkya Rahane and have him caught and bowled off a miscued pull in the fifth over.
KKR still scored 56 in their powerplay, though, and 31 of those runs came in two overs from Duffy, who took the new ball ahead of Hazlewood, and didn’t do too much that was obviously wrong, but Allen, Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvansh were good enough to put away marginal errors in line and length.
That Dubey over was the last bit of real joy with the ball for KKR. Vaibhav Arora kept drifting onto Kohli’s pads in an 18-run second over, and then Bethell took his revenge on Dubey by going 6, 4, 4 at the start of the third.
Kartik Tyagi removed Bethell with a nasty short ball that rushed him on the pull, but he followed that up by straying down the leg side and overcompensating with width, and Devdutt Padikkal put both away to the boundary to get his innings moving.
RCB finished the powerplay at 66 for 1, with Kohli swivelling to pull Tyagi for six in the sixth over and ending that phase on 30 off 14.
From there, it was just a case of ticking off the remaining runs with no need for undue risk. No one is better at that game than Kohli. He scored eight twos – the joint third-most for him in an IPL innings – and found the boundary whenever the viewer may have wondered how long it had been since the last one. Mishaps at the other end – Tyagi dismissed Padikkal with an into-the-pitch cutter before pinging Rajat Patidar on the helmet; a Sunil Narine carrom ball forced a miscue from Patidar; Manish Pandey took a flying one-hander at point to send back Tim David – were mere blips in RCB’s otherwise silky-smooth ride.
And as the end neared, Kohli grew more expansive, playing two of his most eye-catching shots – a straight six off Anukul Roy with barely any follow-through, and a whipped six of iron wrists off Tyagi – to hurry towards the century mark. He got there with a single off Arora in the 19th over, and Jitesh Sharma finished the game soon after, flat-batting Dubey past long-on to bring up victory with five balls remaining.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 194 for 4 in 19.1 overs (Jacob Bethell 15, Virat Kohli 105*, Devdutt Padikkal 39, Rajat Patidar 11; Kartik Tyagi 3-32, Sunil Narine 1-31) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 192 for 4 in 20 overs (Ajinkya Rahane 19, Finn Allen 18, Angkrish Raghuvanshi 71, Rinku Singh 49*, Cameron Green 32; Bhuveneshwar Kumar 1-34, Josh Hazelwood 1-35, Raasik Salam 1-35) by six wickets
[Cricinfo]
Memorial services will be held today to mark the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
On 11 September 2001, 2,977 people were killed when hijackers crashed two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York.
Another hijacked plane hit the Pentagon near Washington DC. A fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back.
[BBC]
Mohammad Rizwan and Imam ul Haq were questioned by Pakistan’s National Cyber Crimes Investigation Agency (NCCIA) in Lahore, as the fallout from Pakistan’s disastrous Test tour of England continued.
The two, who were in the group of seven players who were dropped from the Pakistan squad and sent back home after the defeat in the second Test at Lord’s, were sent summons to appear before the NCCIA. They appeared on Thursday. At least one of the players is believed to have been there for several hours.
It is not clear yet what the questioning was about, or whether it is related to the PCB’s own inquiry, which they announced earlier this week. The board did not name any players then but said it had “initiated an internal disciplinary inquiry following media reports concerning discipline and conduct, which are currently being reviewed internally”. That process, the board said, was being “conducted under PCB regulations”.
Cricinfo understands that at least one of the players has been given a questionnaire to respond to and return to the NCCIA next week.
At the end of the Lord’s Test, which Pakistan lost by 194 runs after losing the first by an innings and 103 runs, seven players as well as the head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and bowling coach Umar Gul were removed from the squad. In their place, seven other players travelled to England, five of whom were uncapped at international level.
Rizwan’s form with the bat on this tour had been poor, with scores of 12, 41, 7 and 1, following low returns in two Tests in the Caribbean as well. His glovework, however, has been exemplary on both tours and until the West Indies series, he had been Pakistan’s leading Test run scorer since January 2024. But an ungainly hoick to be dismissed for 1 in the second innings at Lord’s attracted plenty of criticism.
Imam, meanwhile, was diagnosed with a grade-1 tear in his left calf after the conclusion of the first day’s play at Lord’s and did not appear on the field during either of Pakistan’s innings. On the final morning, during pre-game warm-ups, he came out to attempt some gentle knockdowns but struggled physically. Aaqib Javed, the PCB’s chief selector and director of high performance publicly questioned Imam’s injury and warned then of an inquiry into it.
In defending the squad changes, the PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi alluded to wider factors at play, without expanding. “We have had a discussion to ascertain the reasons behind it. They include factors beyond performance and we will get to the bottom of it.”
The selection of both the players for the West Indies and England tours was also the subject of a notice sent by the PCB to selectors after the Lord’s Test. The notice asked for a written explanation outlining the reasons for their selection and the process through which it was arrived at, within 24 hours of the receipt of notice. Misbah-ul-Haq, one of the selectors, resigned from the post following the changes to the squad.
[Cricinfo]
Soon-to-be world number one Elena Rybakina produced a gritty comeback against Coco Gauff to reach the US Open final, in which she will face Aryna Sabalenka in a blockbuster showdown between the tournament’s top two seeds.
Rybakina is guaranteed to end Sabalenka’s 99-week reign as world number one and will replace the Belarusian at the top when the rankings are updated on Monday.
But the Kazakh second seed could rub more salt in Sabalenka’s wounds if she can deny the top seed a third successive US Open title in Saturday’s showpiece.
Sabalenka sent a warning to her rivals as she overpowered home hope Jessica Pegula 7-5 6-2 to keep alive her bid to become the third woman in the Open era to win the New York singles title three times in a row.
Rybakina will stand in her way after she fought back to beat American fourth seed Gauff 3-6 6-4 6-4 and silence the partisan crowd.
“I took a deep breath and just told myself I needed to fight and show good tennis,” Rybakina said.
The 27-year-old is chasing her third Grand Slam title after winning Wimbledon in 2022 and beating Sabalenka in January’s Australian Open final.
It will be the first time the top two women’s seeds have contested a US Open final since Serena Williams beat Victoria Azarenka in the 2013 showpiece.
Aryna Sabalenka is the first player – male or female – to reach eight successive hard-court Grand Slam finals [BBC Sport]
Sabalenka has not been beaten in New York since losing the 2023 final to Gauff, but there were doubts over her title defence following a poor run-up to the tournament.
After a strong start to the season and winning the ‘Sunshine Double’ at Indian Wells and Miami in March, Sabalenka suffered a quarter-final defeat at Roland Garros and a fourth-round exit at Wimbledon.
However, she has found her form again, dropping just one set en route to the final.
“I was super desperate,” Sabalenka said after her win over Pegula.
“It feels for me, talking about Grand Slams, like a last push of the season.
“I wanted it badly to go to the finals, and of course, I want to go all the way.”
In a tense opening set, Sabalenka bristled with frustration early on as unforced errors crept into her game while Pegula settled quickly and struck the ball cleanly.
But eventually the four-time major singles winner found her rhythm and, after striking decisively at 6-5 to take the first set, she cranked up the power.
Pegula looked helpless as Sabalenka raced through the second set, with the Belarusian pounding 29 winners to her 12.
The victory meant Sabalenka broke the Open era record for the most Grand Slam hard-court finals in a row, with the 28-year-old reaching every major final on her favoured surface since the 2023 Australian Open.
For 32-year-old Pegula – the only semi-finalist without a Grand Slam title – it is yet another US Open defeat by long-time rival Sabalenka.
Sabalenka denied the third seed a maiden major in the 2024 final, while she also got the better of her in last year’s semi-finals – although Pegula had won their most recent meeting in June’s Berlin Open.
“I do think she probably would have beaten 99% of people,” Pegula said.
“Probably the best match she’s played this year.”
[BBC Sports]
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Rizwan and Imam quizzed by Pakistan’s cybercrimes investigators
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