IPL 2026: India’s batting giant Virat Kohli has expressed his admiration for Chris Gayle's opening prowess, rating the West Indian legend above his India teammate Rohit Sharma as the best opener in T20 cricket.

In a social media video, Kohli was quizzed on his preferences, pitting current and past cricketing greats against each other. Kohli, who also boasts a powerful record as an opener in the Indian Premier League (IPL), played a game of This or That and was asked about the best opener in T20 cricket.

In a video released by the RCB on Sunday, Kohli opted for Adam Gilchrist over Sunil Narine, before choosing Travis Head over the Australian legend.

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The decisive moment arrived when Kohli was pushed to choose between Rohit Sharma and Chris Gayle as the best T20 opener, and after a brief pause, the star RCB batter threw his weight behind the Caribbean hard-hitter.

The West Indies legend has cemented his reputation as a destructive force in the format, standing tall as T20 cricket's leading run-scorer, with a staggering 14,562 runs in 455 innings across all formats. His IPL exploits are equally impressive, with 4965 runs in just 142 matches.

Gayle also holds the history of the highest individual score in the tournament's history. The West Indies legend returned unbeaten at 175 playing for RCB against Pune Warriors in 2013.

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While Rohit has amassed 4231 runs in 159 games and 151 innings in T20I and 7046 runs in 272 matches and 267 innings in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Meanwhile, Virat will be back in action for RCB when Royal Challengers Bengaluru open its IPL 2026 campaign against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on March 28.


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