On This Day: Indian Premier League celebrates its fifteenth birthday

It was 15 years ago, on 18 April 2008 when first-ever IPL match was played.

On This Day: Indian Premier League celebrates its fifteenth birthday

Indian Premier League (IPL) entered its sixteenth edition this year when Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Gujarat Titans (GT) locked horns at the iconic Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on 31st March. 18 days and 24 matches later, IPL 2023 has well and truly picked up its pace. Thrilling games are being witnessed every evening and the fans are pretty happy about it.

While the fans are enjoying the thrilling games and continue to hail the IPL as the world’s best T20 league, they must also remember the day when the first-ever IPL match was played. It was 15 years ago, on 18 April 2008, when Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) took on Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to kick off the Indian T20 league.

Sourav Ganguly-led KKR beat Rahul Dravid’s RCB by a massive 140 runs to set the foundation for the IPL to become a grand league. Brendon McCullum played a blazing knock (158* off just 73 balls) and much deservedly was named the Player of the Match.

While the T20 format was still new to many, Indian cricket fans welcomed this new league with open hands and fast forward to 18 April 2023, IPL is second to no other T20 league in the world. With fifteen editions of the tournament already completed, IPL is now even bigger than when it was started. Two teams were added last year which resulted in an increased number of games as well as entertainment and thrill.

With IPL turning 15 years old, here is what cricket Twitter has to say about it.

Check out the reactions:

https://twitter.com/sahillxCricket/status/1648240187296866304?s=20

Related: Netizens create memes after CSK secure tense victory over RCB despite Glenn Maxwell’s scintillating knock

On This Day in 2017

chris gayle

While the fans celebrate IPL’s 15th birthday, there is one more event that took place on 18 April 2017. Chris Gayle became the first-ever batter to breach the 10,000 runs mark in T20 cricket. The Universe Boss achieved this feat in his 285th T20 innings, during an IPL match between RCB and the now-defunct Gujarat Lions. While Gayle only needed three runs then to achieve this milestone, the RCB batter added 75 more runs to further extend his lead.

Since then, six more batters have achieved this milestone of 10,000 T20 runs. India’s Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are the two players to have done it.

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