Data check: At IPL 2024, a look at the new records for most sixes, centuries scored and more

After over two months of high-octane Twenty20 cricketing action, the 2024 Indian Premier League came to a close on Sunday as Kolkata Knight Riders beat the Sunrisers Hyderabad by eight wickets in Chennai to win their third IPL crown.

This was a long season, but one that had been rated as the most “explosive” IPL due to the powerful, record-breaking batting performances on display.

The 17th edition of the marquee competition, however, did throw up some impressive bowling displays to go along with excellent fielding efforts.

The statisticians were kept busy with new milestones being set.

Here’s presenting the 2024 IPL season in numbers:

Also read: Kolkata Knight Riders’ bowlers set up win as Venkatesh Iyer clinches title against Sunrisers Hyderabad

Team records

The batters across all ten teams were playing on an unprecedented level in this season, with teams putting up scores of 200-plus quite regularly.

But with every team buoyed by greater batting depth because of the Impact Player rule, the race to the playoffs became a tighter affair.

The race to the play-offs was an incredibly tight one as four teams finished on 14 points. The Royal Challengers Bengaluru made the cut eventually due to a better Net Run Rate.

This was the first time four teams were level on points but only one could make it through.

This was however, the fourth time that three teams or more had been deadlocked on points and had to be separated on the NRR to decide who made the playoffs.

2020: Three teams finished with 14 points as the Sunrisers Hyderabad (0.608) and Bengaluru (-0.172) qualified over Kolkata Knight Riders (-0.214)

2019: Three teams finished with 12 points with Hyderabad (0.577) taking the playoff berth over Kolkata (-0.028) and Punjab Kings (-0.251)

2010: Four teams finished on 14 points with Chennai Super Kings (0.274) and Bengaluru (0.219) qualifying over Delhi Capitals (0.021) and Kolkata (-0.341)

Within a month, the highest aggregate runs scored in a T20 match was reset twice – Hyderabad were at the scene of the carnage both times.

The first was when they played Mumbai Indians on March 27 and set a new record for the highest-ever total in IPL history (277/3), surpassing Bengaluru’s total of 263 scored against the erstwhile Pune Warriors back in 2013. Mumbai managed to score 246/5, as the match finished with an aggregate of 523 runs, the highest in the format.

Then, the Hyderabad batting unit rewrote their own record when they played Bengaluru two weeks later to post a total of 287/3. Bengaluru’s reply of 262/7 then made this match move into top spot with the highest-ever aggregate of runs scored in a T20 game – 549.

Punjab’s win against Kolkata on April 26 (in third spot) and Delhi’s win against Mumbai (in seventh spot) means that four of the top 10 highest-aggregate totals in T20s were achieved in this IPL season alone.

The match between Punjab and Kolkata was also the highest-ever successful chase in a T20 game, with Punjab chasing down the target of 262 with eight balls to spare.

Bengaluru’s effort of 262/7 in a chase of 288 was the highest-ever score in an unsuccessful chase in a T20 game.

Unsurprisingly, with the way that the teams batted across the league, it is no surprise that the 2024 season saw the 200-run threshold being crossed a whopping 41 times, the last time being in the second-last league game of the season where Hyderabad chased down a target of 215 against Punjab.

The 2017 season saw teams cross the 200+ threshold only ten times.

Batting records

This was also the season that saw the most number of sixes being hit by batters with the ball clearing the boundary ropes 1260 times.

Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Abhishek Sharma hit 42 sixes, the most by a batter this season. It meant that more than half of his 484 runs came through sixes (252).

While his team faltered at the Eliminator after sneaking into the playoffs, Bengaluru’s Virat Kohli was in imperious form this season. The Indian batter won the Orange Cap (for most runs scored in an IPL season) with 741 runs in 15 matches. But more importantly, Kohli became the first player to cross 8000 runs overall in IPL history across 252 matches.

The next-best batter is Shikhar Dhawan who has 6769 runs in 222 matches, having played for five different teams so far.

Kohli’s aggregate of 741 runs is the fifth highest total scored by a single batter in one IPL season. The highest is also Kohli back in 2016 when he scored 973 runs with four centuries and seven half-centuries.

Compared to previous seasons of the IPL, the 2024 season had the most number of centuries being scored by batters. It is also the fourth-highest number of centuries among T20 leagues across the world.

These 14 centuries were scored by 13 different batters with Jos Buttler scoring two centuries. The highest individual score belonged to Marcus Stoinis, who struck 124 off 63 balls, in Lucknow Super Giants’ win over Chennai.

Bowling records

Punjab’s Harshal Patel picked up the Purple Cap (for most wickets taken) despite his team not having made it to the playoffs. But what is interesting about this year’s list is that the top five bowlers are all Indians.

The last time this happened was back in 2021, when Patel had also won the Purple Cap, with Bengaluru, and in 2010 with Pragyan Ojha (then playing for the now defunct Deccan Chargers) at the top of the list.

In the league stage match against Mumbai on April 23, Chahal crossed an important milestone as he picked up his 200th IPL wicket. The only bowler to cross the mark so far, Chahal finished the 2024 season with 18 wickets to his name, rounding off the top 10 wicket-takers list.