Mumbai Indians’ annihilation of Sunrisers Hyderabad earlier in the afternoon had left Royal Challengers Bangalore in a must-win situation going into the final league fixture of IPL 2023. To add to the pressure, a massive afternoon downpour and steady drizzle through the evening delayed the start of their game against table-toppers Gujarat Titans at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Sunday.

The 55-minute wait for the start of play seemed to make no difference to Virat Kohli, who took it upon himself to shepherd his team to a total that would allow his bowlers to be competitive later in the night. In another excellent exhibition of glorious stroke-making, the former skipper became only the third batsman in IPL history, after Shikhar Dhawan and Jos Buttler, to notch up hundreds in consecutive matches.