Top 3 highest opening partnerships in IPL

Indian Premier League 2023 is underway as almost a half of the matches have been played so far. Notably, it is the 16th season of this cash-rich Indian franchise league; in the tournaments like this one, the all-participating teams look ahead for the brilliant openers who can provide an essential start to the team when required the most. 

Since the inception of the tournament, we’ve witnessed a lot of historic moments for the batters in the 15-year-long history since its inception in the year 2008. With that said, here we’ll give a look to the three highest opening partnerships in the history of the Indian Premier League.

1. KL Rahul and Quinton de Kock – 210* runs (IPL 2022) 

The new entrants of last year’s edition in the Indian Premier League 2022, Lucknow Super Giants were taking on Kolkata Knight Riders in a league match. It was the time when the KKR bowlers faced the wrath of the star LSG openers Quinton de Kock and KL Rahul. The duo didn’t give even a single chance to any of the bowlers of Kolkata’s bowling lineup. 

De Kock and KL Rahul stitched an unbeaten partnership of 210 runs for the first wicket and they played till the last over of the first innings. The Proteas southpaw contributed with a swashbuckling knock of 140 runs off just 70 balls in the partnership. This mammoth partnership between the star LSG opening duo is the highest opening partnership in the history of the tournament.

2. Jonny Bairstow and David Warner – 185 runs (IPL 2019) 

Sunrisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bangalore were locking horns with each other during a league in the 12th season of the IPL in 2019. SRH came to bat first and the momentum was completely shifted in the favour of the orange army as their explosive openers Jonny Bairstow and David Warner went on to make a partnership of 185 runs for the first wicket. 

Both the batters also completed their individual centuries and scored 114 and 100 runs respectively. Eventually, SRH finished with a big total of 231 runs for the loss of two wickets in the allotted 20 overs and bundled RCB only on 113 runs to win the match by a massive margin of 118 runs.

3. Gautam Gambhir and Chris Lynn – 184* runs 

It was a match of Indian Premier League 2017 when KKR was taking on Gujarat Lions; the latter managed to put a total of 183 runs for the loss of four wickets in the allotted 20 overs; thanks to the skipper Suresh Raina who played the knock of 68 runs off 51 balls. 

But something historical was yet to happen in the second innings during the run chase of Kolkata Knight Riders. Skipper Gautam Gambhir took the centrestage with the star batter Chris Lynn. This blistering opening single handedly stitched an unbeaten partnership of 184 runs to win the match by 10 wickets for Kolkata Knight Riders.