The Indian Premier League in 2016 saw two new teams - Rising Pune Supergiants and Gujarat Lions, since the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were suspended for two years after the spot-fixing scandal. This was the first IPL where MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina played in two separate teams. MS Dhoni led the Rising Pune Supergiants and Raina was the captain of Gujarat Lions.

The 2016 season will always be known for the amazing batsmanship by Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers. The Royal Challengers Bangalore were down and out when they lost to the Mumbai Indians at their home ground and they needed to win four matches in a row to qualify for the play-offs. In their very next match, Kohli and De Villiers recorded a partnership of 229 runs (best stand in the IPL) against Gujarat Lions and set the ball rolling for RCB. They beat Gujarat by 144 runs and won four consecutive matches and finished second in the league stage.

The Gujarat Lions were the best team in the league stage. Suresh Raina’s team won nine out of fourteen matches in the competition. The Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders made it to the top four with eight wins each. Hyderabad finished with a better net run rate and therefore there were at the third place at the end of the league stage.

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The Royal Challengers Bangalore continued their great run and made it five wins in a row, when they beat Gujarat Lions in the first qualifying match. First, the bowlers put up an excellent performance to bundle Gujarat for 158 runs and then AB de Villiers played a masterclass innings of 79 runs from 47 balls to help RCB win by four wickets.

The Sunrisers Hyderabad bowling attack showed their class once again when they defended a total of 162 against the Kolkata Knight Riders in the eliminator match. Bhuvneshwar Kumar was the star bowler with figures of 3/19 as Hyderabad restricted KKR to 140/8 in their 20 overs.

Even though Gujarat were the best team in the league stage, they couldn’t step up in the play-offs. They managed a decent total of 162/7 while batting first, but then David Warner took the game away from them with an unbeaten innings of 93 runs from 58 balls. SRH won the match by four wickets.

The final seemed to be over when the Sunrisers put up a score of 208/7 at the end of their 20 overs, but Virat Kohli and Chris Gayle put RCB in the driver’s seat with a fantastic start. The Royal Challengers Bangalore had their best chance of winning the competition when Kohli and Gayle put on a stand of 114 runs. But once both the batsmen were back in the hut, the batting order crumbled and RCB went down by eight runs.

Virat Kohli won the Orange Cap as he finished as the highest scorer with 973 runs and Bhuvneshwar Kumar won the Purple Cap as he finished as the highest wicket-taker with 23 wickets.

First Published: Mar 23, 2019 22:17 IST