IPL 2021: AB de Villiers surpasses Chris Gayle in an Indian Premier League record

AB de Villiers surpassed Chris Gayle in an Indian Premier League (IPL) record on Sunday.

De Villiers was named the Player of the Match for his incredible knock of 76 off 34 balls during Royal Challengers Bangalore's win over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Chennai. De Villiers now holds the record of winning the most number of Man of the Match awards in the league – 23, one more than Gayle.

Next on the list is Mumbai Indians (MI) skipper Rohit Sharma with 18 Man of the Match awards, ahead of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captains David Warner and MS Dhoni (17 each).

After opting to bat, RCB lost two wickets inside two overs. Virat Kohli was sent back for five off six before one-down batsman Rajat Patidar got out for a two-ball one. From there on, Glenn Maxwell and de Villiers took charge of RCB's innings.

Both the batters struck three sixes and nine fours each in their respective knocks on Sunday. While Maxwell registered his eighth IPL half-century, de Villiers scored his 39th fifty at a strike-rate of 223.53.

In RCB's previous game, which was against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), Maxwell top-scored for his side with 59 off 41 and helped Bangalore to reach a defendable total of 149 for 8. He was named the Player of the Match as SRH, in the end, fell short by six runs.

"It was nice to get in early. It became hard to time the ball as the innings went on, looked to cash in against the new ball. He (AB de Villiers) did it in the first game, showed his class, was an extraordinary knock, just shows that if you give yourself some time, you can play shots on this surface. Looking to make the most of the form. We'll have to bowl well, use the variations, be accurate, playing shots is easy when there is plenty of pace on the ball," Maxwell said in an interview during the innings break on Sunday in Chennai.

KKR leaked 56 runs in the last three overs. Two of the three overs were bowled by Andre Russell.

De Villiers managed 17 runs off the 18th over, which was bowled by Russell before both de Villiers and Kyle Jamieson went after Harbhajan Singh, scoring 18 runs off the penultimate over of RCB's innings. Russell gave away as many as 21 runs in the final over, which included a six, three fours and two runs, all coming off the South African's willow, apart from a wide bowled by Russell.

"I had a lot of fun out there. It helped with Maxi playing well up front and it made it really easy and gave the guys confidence that it's not unplayable. It's difficult when you come into games like these where the wicket tends to be a bit slow, you got to break the shackles individually which some of our players did tonight. It was definitely a better wicket, probably not a 200 wicket.

I surprise myself sometimes and you just got to go out there and give out your best, the most important thing is I enjoy myself and I love playing cricket and I love playing for this team, they are my family over the years and a lot of reasons for me to be happy to really enjoy my cricket. You take it one game at a time and you're only as good as your last game," said de Villiers after leading RCB to a 38-run win over KKR.