DC vs RCB: AB de Villiers becomes 2nd overseas to enter 5,000-club in IPL

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) batsman AB de Villiers became the second overseas player after David Warner to reach 5,000 Indian Premier League (IPL) runs on Tuesday. He achieved the feat during his knock of 75 off 42 balls against Delhi Capitals (DC) at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad.

De Villiers, who scored his 40th IPL half-century on Tuesday, boosted RCB to put up 171 for 5 in 20 overs after being asked to bat first. The former South Africa batsman has been associated with RCB since 2011 and has slammed 5,053 runs in 175 matches for them. Incidentally, he was in with the DC franchise before shifting base to Bangalore, scoring 671 runs for them in 26 innings.

RCB's de Villiers became the fifth batsman to enter the 5,000-club in the IPL after his RCB teammate Virat Kohli, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) veteran Suresh Raina, Mumbai Indians (MI) skipper Rohit Sharma, and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) captain Warner.

The former Proteas was the quickest batsman to reach 5,000 runs in the IPL, in terms of balls faced. De Villiers took 3,288 balls to clinch the milestone ahead of Warner (3,554 balls), Raina (3,620 balls), Rohit (3,817 balls), Kohli (3,827 balls), and Dhawan (3,956 balls).

Meanwhile, de Villiers also was the fifth player to score 40 or more half-centuries in the IPL. While Warner holds the record for most fifties in the tournament (49) and Delhi's Shikhar Dhawan is second on the list with 43 fifties. De Villiers, Kohli and Rohit have registered 40 fifties each in the IPL.

RCB have made their best start to an IPL season, winning the first four matches. However, they suffered a setback when they were handed a 69-runs thrashing at the hands of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) last week. They will look to get back to winning ways in their underway game against Delhi in Ahmedabad.

Earlier, DC had won the toss and opted to bowl. They made one change to their XI, with Ishant Sharma replacing Ravichandran Ashwin. RCB, on the other hand, brought in Australia all-rounder Daniel Sams and Rajat Patidar in place of Daniel Christian and Navdeep Saini respectively.