Whenever there is talk of records in the Indian Premier League i.e. IPL, Virat Kohli’s name comes up first. In IPL 2026, King Kohli has once again achieved such a position, which has taken him to the top in the list of most special players in the history of the league.

Virat Kohli became the player to play the most matches in IPL history as soon as he entered the field in the match played between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders. This was the 279th match of his IPL career. With this he left behind Mahendra Singh Dhoni of Chennai Super Kings and Rohit Sharma of Mumbai Indians.

Before the start of IPL 2026, the record of playing most matches was in the name of MS Dhoni. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were behind him. But this season injuries affected both the legendary players. Dhoni has not been able to take the field till now due to injury, while Rohit Sharma also remained out of many matches due to hamstring problem. Virat Kohli got the benefit of this and he made the record in his name.

Virat Kohli at number-1

Now in the list of players who have played most matches in IPL, Virat Kohli is at first place with 279 matches. Behind him are MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma with 278-278 matches. Apart from this, Ravindra Jadeja has played 265 matches and Dinesh Karthik has played 257 matches. Virat Kohli is considered the biggest player of IPL not only in terms of playing matches but also in batting. He has also completed his 9000 runs in IPL 2026. He is the first batsman in the league to achieve this feat. Rohit Sharma is second in the list of highest run scorers, but there is a big difference between his and Virat’s figures.

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Kohli also holds the record of scoring the highest number of 974 runs in a single season of IPL. Apart from this, the record of scoring most centuries and half-centuries is also in his name. This is the reason why fans call him the real “King” of IPL.

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Interestingly, for RCB, this was the team’s 283rd match, but Virat Kohli has missed only 4 matches. In 2008, he did not play a single match, while in 2017, he was out of three matches due to injury. His fitness, consistency and loyalty towards the team make him different from other players.