Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Rajat Patidar has picked five iconic batting performances of all time by Indian batters. Patidar selected Sachin Tendulkar’s memorable knock of 241 runs against Australia at Sydney as his number one pick.
Tendulkar was getting dismissed while playing the cover drive throughout the series and he decided to leave that shot in the dressing room and showed all the discipline as well as patience.
Patidar said on the SportsLaunchpad YouTube Channel, “First, Sachin Tendulkar’s innings, which I had heard about, I think it was somewhere in Australia. He was getting out while playing drives. So, he did not play a single cover drive. That would be number one.”
Patidar then picked his RCB teammate Virat Kohli’s magnum opus knock of 82 runs off just 53 balls in the 2022 T20 World Cup against Pakistan at Melbourne. India was on a mat as they needed 28 runs off the last eight balls but Kohli was able to get his team over the line.
At number three, Patidar picked Virat Kohli’s performance on the 2014-15 tour of Australia. After a mundane series against England, Kohli was able to turn a corner, scoring 692 runs in five Test matches against Australia, including four centuries.
Patidar picked Suresh Raina’s knock of 87 runs off just 25 balls against Punjab Kings in the second qualifier in IPL 2014, as the number four performance.
The Madhya Pradesh batter then picked Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s two IPL centuries. Sooryavanshi scored 101 runs off just 38 balls against GT in IPL 2025 whereas he smashed 103 runs off 37 balls against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the previous season.
Patidar showered praise on Sooryavanshi for his incredible performance in the IPL. The youngster scored 776 runs in 16 matches of IPL 2026.
“He is absolutely exceptional. Seriously, the way he has dominated every bowler, no matter how big a bowler is, he has put every bowler under pressure. I have even seen bowlers looking completely clueless against him, wondering, “What do we do? Where do we bowl?” But the way he has dominated the IPL at this age, at such a young age, is truly exceptional. I feel that for every team, the first thing they probably talk about when they have a match against RR is Vaibhav.”
