Sai Sudharsan to 2,000 IPL runs in 47 innings: the Gayle record is gone
Sai Sudharsan walked out to open the Gujarat Titans innings at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Friday needing 72 runs to hit 2,000 in the IPL. He watched Shubman Gill time the ball cleanly at the other end for 32 before Gill fell. He got to the milestone himself at the end of the ninth, a six off Krunal Pandya, and the record that Chris Gayle had held since the 2013 season was gone.
Sudharsan has 2,000 IPL runs in 47 innings. Gayle took 48. The gap Sudharsan has built at the top of this list, for a 24-year-old who is still only five IPL seasons into his career, is substantial.
The rest of the night belonged to him too
The record was only the start. Sudharsan went on to a 58-ball 100 with eleven fours and five sixes, his third career hundred in the IPL and his first of the 2026 season. He had scraped through the first five games of this campaign without a fifty, and the Gujarat coaching staff had spent most of last week talking about getting him back into rhythm rather than worrying about the form itself.
The rhythm came back on Friday in the kind of innings that makes a season. He played the early overs cleanly, took on the short ball and then opened up against the spinners through the middle. The acceleration between the tenth and fifteenth over was where Gujarat built the platform for the 205 they finished on.
Where Sudharsan sits among IPL openers
The strike rate across Sudharsan's career now sits close to 147 and his average is above 47. That combination, at a top-of-the-order spot, is unusual for an Indian batter who has only recently moved into the senior international picture. He was the Orange Cap winner in IPL 2025 with 759 runs, and Friday's hundred was his third across three seasons in Gujarat colours.
The first of those came against Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2024, on a night when the run-chase against Gujarat had turned into a personal audition. Friday's knock at Chinnaswamy was the one that confirmed where he sits in the pecking order now. Ahead of Gayle on the fastest-2,000 list is not a small line to write under a player's name.
A hundred that deserved more
Sudharsan finished on the losing side. RCB chased 206 down with seven balls in hand, which is the kind of thing that happens when Kohli and Padikkal are both hitting cleanly. That will sting back at the Gujarat team hotel. The record, though, is his. So is the season's form. If Sudharsan keeps opening the way he did on Friday, the second half of Gujarat's 2026 campaign is going to be a very different problem for opposing bowlers.
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