Raipur Cricket Stadium records: the biggest numbers at Naya Raipur’s international ground

The Raipur Cricket Stadium records got a dramatic rewrite in May 2026, when Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 105 dragged the ground’s top scores into a different bracket after a decade of near-silence. Officially the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Naya Raipur, Chhattisgarh, it is one of India’s largest grounds by capacity and one of its least-used at the top level, which is exactly why its record book reads unlike anywhere else on the circuit. Here is what the numbers say about the venue, from its highest and lowest totals to the pitch it plays on.

Raipur Cricket Stadium at a glance

The stadium sits in the planned township of Naya Raipur, a short drive from the old city. It holds roughly 65,000 spectators, which puts it among the three or four biggest cricket grounds in the country, yet it has hosted only a handful of internationals and IPL fixtures since it opened. Delhi’s IPL franchise adopted it as a second home venue between 2013 and 2016, then it went quiet for the format until 2026. In between it staged a Champions League T20 leg in 2014, a couple of internationals, and a run of domestic cricket.

The playing surface is a traditional black-soil wicket that sits on the slower side, and the boundaries are long, averaging above 80 metres and stretching to around 84 at the straightest points. Those two features shape almost every record the ground holds.

Highest and lowest team totals at Raipur

The single biggest total the ground has seen came in that 2014 Champions League leg, when Northern Districts piled up 206 for 5 against the Cape Cobras. In the IPL, the mark stood at a modest 164 for 5 through the 2013 to 2016 window, which tells you how sluggish the early scoring was here. That changed in 2026. Royal Challengers Bengaluru chased down 194 for 4 against Kolkata Knight Riders on 13 May, overhauling KKR’s 192 for 4 and lifting the venue’s IPL ceiling by 30 runs in a single evening.

Record	Total	Match	When
Highest T20 total (any competition)	206/5	Northern Districts v Cape Cobras	CLT20 2014
Highest IPL total	194/4	RCB v KKR	May 2026
Highest IPL total, 2013 to 2016 era	164/5	Delhi in the IPL	2013-2016
Lowest IPL total	119/6	Chennai Super Kings v Delhi	2015
Lowest ODI total	108 all out	New Zealand v India	Jan 2023

The chase records lean heavily one way. Across the six IPL matches from 2013 to 2016, four were won by the side batting second and only two by the team setting a target. Add the 2026 games and the picture stays the same, because both of RCB’s wins that year came chasing. Raipur is a ground where captains want the ball first.

Highest individual score at Raipur Cricket Stadium

Kohli’s 105 not out off 60 balls against KKR is now the highest individual innings the venue has produced. It was his ninth IPL hundred and it arrived straight after back-to-back ducks, a reset that sent RCB to the top of the 2026 table. Only one other batter has reached three figures here, and it happened twelve years earlier: Kane Williamson’s 101 not out for Northern Districts in the 2014 Champions League. Between those two centuries the ground had seen plenty of fifties and little else, a reminder of how rarely it stages the sort of cricket that fills a record book.

The 2026 IPL return

Raipur waited a decade for the IPL to come back, and RCB gave the ground two full houses in the space of four days. The first, on 10 May, was the tighter game: Mumbai Indians made 166 for 7 with Tilak Varma top-scoring on 57, and RCB got home by two wickets on the back of Krunal Pandya’s 73, reaching 167 for 8 with a wicket to spare. Three days later came the record night. Kolkata Knight Riders posted 192 for 4, built around Angkrish Raghuvanshi’s 71 off 46 and Rinku Singh’s unbeaten 49 off 29, and RCB knocked it off with five balls in hand thanks to Kohli’s hundred. Two chases, two wins, and a venue scoring rate that finally looked like the rest of the league.

Best bowling figures at Raipur

The sharpest spell on record belongs to Amit Mishra, whose 4 for 10 for Uttar Pradesh against Vidarbha in the 2018 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy remains the best T20 return at the ground. At international level the standout performances have come from India’s bowlers on two of the venue’s headline international nights. Mohammed Shami took 3 for 18 to help skittle New Zealand for 108 in the 2023 one-dayer, and Axar Patel’s 3 for 16 choked Australia in the T20I later that year. The slow surface has generally rewarded control over pace, and spinners have found grip that quicker, truer wickets do not offer.

Is Raipur Cricket Stadium a batting or bowling pitch?

On the evidence, it is closer to a bowling ground than a batting one, at least until 2026. The average first-innings score across the six older IPL matches was only 146, well below the league norm, and the long boundaries mean mishit sixes tend to die in the deep. The black soil holds together and turns slowly, so bowlers who vary their pace and use the surface do well. The 2026 RCB games showed the ground can produce a high-scoring night when the batting is good enough, but the underlying read has not changed: set a total here and you are usually behind the game, which is why the chasing side keeps winning.

Memorable matches at Raipur Cricket Stadium

Three nights define the venue. The first was its arrival as an international ground in January 2023, when India bowled New Zealand out for 108 and knocked off the runs inside 21 overs, Shami doing the early damage and Rohit Sharma easing the chase. Later the same year India returned and beat Australia by 20 runs in a December T20I, Axar Patel’s 3 for 16 the difference as the hosts defended 174. The third was Kohli’s 105 not out in 2026, the innings that finally gave a huge, underused stadium a headline score to match its size.

For more on the numbers behind the format, see our guides to the biggest T20 cricket records and ODI cricket records, or read the full list of Virat Kohli’s cricket records and the milestones he has piled up.

Dig into more cricket features