Faf du Plessis has been in scintillating form in IPL 2023 and is the current Orange Cap holder.  He’s scoring at a consistency that, if maintained, could see him challenge some of the IPL’s all-time great seasons.

Du Plessis has scored 405 runs in seven innings so far, with a top score of 84. He has, on average, managed 57.85 runs per innings. If that continues, he will end up scoring 810 runs in the league stages alone.

The current record for the most runs scored in an IPL season lies with du Plessis’ RCB teammate Virat Kohli, who notched up 961 runs in the 2016 edition. Du Plessis, if he were to play 17 games at the same per-innings scoring rate that he has done so far, would end up scoring 983 runs.

There is, of course, no guarantee that du Plessis will keep scaling the heights he has already done, and playing 17 games would depend on RCB finishing on the top two, losing their first playoff game, and then making it to the final. But because of his sensational start to this IPL season, he is better placed than most to hunt down Kohli’s record.

The RCB captain also has five fifties in seven innings. David Warner currently holds the record for the most fifties (9) in a single IPL season by an overseas batter. Kohli, meanwhile, holds the overall record for the most fifty-plus scores (11) in an IPL campaign. Du Plessis, if he keeps batting in this fashion, could break one or both of those records.

The South Africa has also hit 25 sixes this season. If he plays all of RCB’s league matches, and continues hitting sixes at that rate, he will have 50 sixes at the culmination of the round-robin stage. If RCB end up playing three playoff games, du Plessis could even come close to Chris Gayle’s record of the most sixes in an IPL season (59).

Another record that du Plessis might have in his sights is that of hitting the most number of sixes in the powerplay in a single season. As things stand, that record is held by Sanath Jayasuriya, who hit 22 maximums in the powerplay in the inaugural edition back in 2008. Du Plessis currently has 12 sixes in this phase and based on how he has been batting both against pace and spin, will be fancying his chances.

After a stop-start beginning to their campaign, RCB are slowly building momentum and at the time of writing, have registered two consecutive wins over Punjab Kings and Rajasthan Royals. Du Plessis, unsurprisingly, played a major role in both of those results.

Despite contending with a rib injury, he has been able to dominate the opposition and has often set the tone for RCB in the powerplay. His excellence at the top of the order has allowed RCB to mask their middle-order deficiencies, to an extent.

And if du Plessis can keep this up for the rest of the campaign, he might end up breaking at least a few of the aforementioned records. If he keeps batting in this manner, though, he could also become the first RCB skipper to win the IPL.

A possible record-breaking season, thus, beckons for Faf du Plessis.

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