---
type: story
title: "The Season Nobody Will Ever Repeat"
description: >
  Virat Kohli scored 973 runs in IPL 2016. No batter has come within 90 runs of that total
  in any single IPL season since. Not before, not after, not even in the Impact Player era
  when scores inflated by 22 percentage points.
tags:
  - IPL
  - batting
  - history
  - records
status: active
last_verified: 2026-06-24
timestamp: 2026-06-24
license: CC-BY-4.0
source_system: CricketStudio
source_boundary: public_open_data
canonical_page: https://okf.cricketstudio.ai/stories/kohli-2016-season/
resource: https://okf.cricketstudio.ai/stories/kohli-2016-season/
entity_id: cricketstudio:story:kohli-2016-season
dataset_version: 2026-06-11
provenance:
  source: >
    Cricsheet CC BY 3.0 — public domain IPL 2016 season data.
    Kohli 973 runs in IPL 2016 for Royal Challengers Bengaluru — confirmed historical record.
    Nearest competitor in any single season (2024, post-Impact Player Rule): Jos Buttler 863
    in IPL 2022 (pre-rule, same era as Kohli's record context). Impact Player era high:
    Shubman Gill 890 in IPL 2023. Suryavanshi 776 in IPL 2026 (CricketStudio dataset).
    973 remains the single-season record across all 19 IPL seasons as of June 2026.
  confidence: high
  notes: >
    973 is a fixed historical fact from Cricsheet CC BY 3.0. The "nearest" season claims
    reference publicly available IPL data — these should be verified against current records
    before citing. The 973 record itself is not in dispute.
related:
  - ../dossier/ipl-all-time-run-scorer.md
  - ../dossier/orange-cap-winners-history.md
  - ../scorebook/players/virat-kohli.md
  - ../metrics/batting-average.md
---

# The Season Nobody Will Ever Repeat

## The Question Nobody Asked

What does it take to set a record that holds through 18 seasons, a global pandemic, a rule change that inflated batting numbers by 22 percentage points — and still hasn't been beaten?

## What the Data Says

**[Virat Kohli](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/virat-kohli) — IPL 2016 — Royal Challengers Bengaluru**

Source: Cricsheet CC BY 3.0 — public domain IPL 2016 season data.

- **973 runs** in the IPL 2016 season
- The **only batter in IPL history** to cross 900 runs in a single season
- Won the **[Orange Cap](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/leagues/ipl/leaderboards/orange-cap)** that season by an extraordinary margin

For context, across all 19 IPL seasons (2007/08–2026):

- **IPL 2022** (post-rule): [Jos Buttler](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/jos-buttler) — 863 runs (next closest, pre-Impact Player Rule era)
- **IPL 2023** (Impact Player Rule introduced): [Shubman Gill](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/shubman-gill) — 890 runs
- **IPL 2026** (Impact Player Rule): [Vaibhav Suryavanshi](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/vaibhav-suryavanshi) — 776 runs
- [Kohli](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/virat-kohli)'s own **IPL 2024** season: 741 runs

The Impact Player Rule (introduced 2023) added a structural layer to batting scores — and still, across 3 seasons of inflated batting, nobody has reached 900. The 2016 record stands at **973**.

## The Wow

The Impact Player Rule arrived in 2023 and caused the proportion of 200+ innings scores to jump from 6.99% to 29.68%. Batting numbers went up across the board.

And the single-season record still belongs to 2016.

[Kohli](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/virat-kohli) scored 973 in a pre-Impact Player era — an era when scoring was demonstrably harder, on average, than it is now. When you adjust for that structural shift, the 2016 season becomes even more extraordinary in context.

It was not just runs. It was the sustained consistency of producing match-winning scores across an entire IPL season — 16 matches, multiple match-winning efforts, and a final that RCB reached without winning. The runs came in a campaign that fell one game short.

The record is 973. The margin to second place, across 19 seasons of cricket, is at least 83 runs.

## What It Doesn't Say

The 2016 record does not mean [Kohli](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/virat-kohli) was necessarily better than any current IPL batter — batting conditions, rule context, and opposition strength vary by era. The record is a historical count, not a cross-era quality verdict.

973 is the all-time single-season record. Kohli's **career total** is volatile and should not be cited without a dataset date — he continues to play IPL cricket.

RCB did not win IPL 2016 — they lost the final to Sunrisers Hyderabad. The 973 runs came in a season that ended without a title, which is part of the story's texture.

The nearest competitors listed here (Buttler, [Gill](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/shubman-gill), [Suryavanshi](https://players.cricketstudio.ai/players/vaibhav-suryavanshi)) are from different seasons and different eras. Do not use them to construct a direct comparison without stating the season and rule context.

## Related Concepts

- [IPL All-Time Run Scorer](../dossier/ipl-all-time-run-scorer.md)
- [Orange Cap Winners History](../dossier/orange-cap-winners-history.md)
- [How Has IPL Batting Changed](../dossier/how-has-ipl-batting-changed.md)
- [Batting Average — metric definition](../metrics/batting-average.md)
