IPL Most Runs: All-Time Records

One batter has scored more than 9,000 runs in the Indian Premier League and there is nobody within 2,000 of him. Virat Kohli has 9,336 from 275 innings, every one of them for the same club, and the gap to Rohit Sharma in second place is larger than the entire career aggregate of most players who have opened in this competition. Kohli reached 8,000 in 2024, passed 9,000 during 2026, and finished the nineteenth season still batting in the top three of the order.

That kind of lead is unusual in a Twenty20 league, where squads turn over every three years and overseas players rotate in and out of availability. It exists because Kohli was signed at nineteen and never left. Length of service, not superiority of method, is the single largest variable on this leaderboard — which is why the list below carries strike rate and average next to the aggregate, and why the sections that follow break the same runs down by season, by club and by era.

Every figure here is counted from ball-by-ball records of all 1,243 Indian Premier League matches from April 2008 to the 2026 final.

The all-time IPL run-scorers

#	Player	Mat	Inns	Runs	HS	Ave	SR	100	50	Span
1	Virat Kohli	282	275	9,336	113*	40.42	134.80	9	68	2008-2026
2	Rohit Sharma	281	275	7,329	109*	30.04	132.92	2	49	2008-2026
3	Shikhar Dhawan	222	221	6,769	106*	35.26	127.14	2	51	2008-2024
4	David Warner	184	184	6,565	126	40.52	139.77	4	62	2009-2024
5	KL Rahul	160	149	5,815	152*	46.52	139.15	6	45	2013-2026
6	Suresh Raina	204	200	5,528	100*	32.52	136.73	1	39	2008-2021
7	MS Dhoni	277	241	5,439	84*	38.30	137.45	0	24	2008-2025
8	Ajinkya Rahane	212	197	5,367	105*	30.15	125.60	2	35	2008-2026
9	Sanju Samson	190	185	5,181	119	31.98	141.13	5	27	2013-2026
10	AB de Villiers	183	170	5,162	133*	39.71	151.69	3	40	2008-2021
11	Chris Gayle	141	141	4,965	175*	39.72	148.96	6	31	2009-2021
12	Robin Uthappa	205	197	4,952	88	27.51	130.35	0	27	2008-2022
13	Dinesh Karthik	257	233	4,842	97*	26.32	135.36	0	22	2008-2024
14	Faf du Plessis	154	147	4,773	96	35.10	135.79	0	39	2012-2025
15	Jos Buttler	138	136	4,646	124	39.71	149.73	7	28	2016-2026
16	Shubman Gill	134	130	4,598	129	40.33	142.09	5	32	2018-2026
17	Suryakumar Yadav	179	164	4,581	103*	33.68	148.59	2	31	2012-2026
18	Ambati Rayudu	204	185	4,348	100*	28.61	127.54	1	22	2010-2023
19	Shreyas Iyer	147	144	4,229	101*	35.84	136.73	1	32	2015-2026
20	Gautam Gambhir	154	151	4,217	93	31.24	123.88	0	36	2008-2018
21	Manish Pandey	180	163	4,012	114*	29.50	121.83	1	22	2008-2026
22	Shane Watson	145	141	3,874	117*	30.99	137.91	4	21	2008-2020
23	Rishabh Pant	139	136	3,865	128*	33.61	146.79	2	20	2016-2026
24	Ishan Kishan	134	127	3,600	106*	30.51	143.54	1	23	2016-2026
25	Ravindra Jadeja	267	205	3,526	77*	29.14	130.64	0	5	2008-2026

Twenty-five names, and only four of them have a career average above 40: Kohli, Warner, Rahul and Gill. Fourteen have averages in the twenties or low thirties, which is the honest shape of a competition where a top-order batter is expected to take risks from the fourth over.

What Kohli's lead is actually made of

Kohli's 9,336 came in 282 appearances for Royal Challengers, a club that won its first title in 2025. The aggregate divides into two very different careers. Between 2008 and 2019 he scored at a strike rate in the low 130s, anchoring an order built around him and AB de Villiers. From 2023 the rate climbed past 150, and his 2026 season — 675 runs at 165.85 — was the fastest scoring of his life.

Only three of his nine hundreds came after 2016, and four came in that one season. The 2016 figure of 973 runs is the largest total anyone has made in an IPL season and it is not close: the second-largest, Shubman Gill's 890 in 2023, is eighty-three short, and no other player has passed 900.

Rohit Sharma's 7,329 is a differently constructed pile. He has 275 innings, exactly the same as Kohli, and 2,007 fewer runs, because his average is ten lower. He opened, captained Mumbai Indians to five titles, and moved down the order in his later years. Two hundreds in 281 matches is a striking number for a batter with 324 sixes — he converted almost nothing, and the individual-score list barely features him.

Every Orange Cap season

Season	Player	Team	Inns	Runs	Ave	SR
2008	Shaun Marsh	Kings XI Punjab	11	616	68.44	139.68
2009	Matthew Hayden	Chennai Super Kings	12	572	52.00	144.81
2010	Sachin Tendulkar	Mumbai Indians	15	618	47.54	132.62
2011	Chris Gayle	Royal Challengers Bangalore	12	608	67.56	183.13
2012	Chris Gayle	Royal Challengers Bangalore	14	733	61.08	160.75
2013	Michael Hussey	Chennai Super Kings	17	733	52.36	129.51
2014	Robin Uthappa	Kolkata Knight Riders	16	660	44.00	137.79
2015	David Warner	Sunrisers Hyderabad	14	562	43.23	156.55
2016	Virat Kohli	Royal Challengers Bangalore	16	973	81.08	152.03
2017	David Warner	Sunrisers Hyderabad	14	641	58.27	141.81
2018	Kane Williamson	Sunrisers Hyderabad	17	735	52.50	142.44
2019	David Warner	Sunrisers Hyderabad	12	692	69.20	143.87
2020	KL Rahul	Kings XI Punjab	14	670	55.83	129.34
2021	Ruturaj Gaikwad	Chennai Super Kings	16	635	45.36	136.27
2022	Jos Buttler	Rajasthan Royals	17	863	57.53	149.05
2023	Shubman Gill	Gujarat Titans	17	890	59.33	157.80
2024	Virat Kohli	Royal Challengers Bengaluru	15	741	61.75	154.70
2025	B Sai Sudharsan	Gujarat Titans	15	759	54.21	156.17
2026	Vaibhav Suryavanshi	Rajasthan Royals	16	776	48.50	237.31

Warner's three caps are the most by any player. Read the strike-rate column downwards and the competition's history is legible in one column of numbers: the 2013 winner scored at 129, the 2020 winner at 129, and the 2026 winner at 237.

The 2026 entry deserves a note of its own. Vaibhav Suryavanshi's 776 runs came off 327 balls — the lowest ball count of any 700-run season by a margin of well over a hundred deliveries. He hit seventy-two sixes on the way, thirteen more than any previous season by any batter.

Leading run-scorer at each franchise

Franchise	Leading scorer	Runs	Inns
Chennai Super Kings	MS Dhoni	4,865	214
Mumbai Indians	Rohit Sharma	6,159	231
Royal Challengers (Bangalore era)	Virat Kohli	7,263	229
Royal Challengers (Bengaluru era)	Virat Kohli	2,073	46
Kolkata Knight Riders	Gautam Gambhir	3,035	107
Rajasthan Royals	Sanju Samson	4,027	143
Sunrisers Hyderabad	David Warner	4,014	95
Kings XI Punjab	Shaun Marsh	2,477	69
Punjab Kings	Prabhsimran Singh	1,834	62
Delhi Daredevils	Virender Sehwag	2,174	79
Delhi Capitals	Rishabh Pant	2,036	72
Gujarat Titans	Shubman Gill	3,181	76
Lucknow Super Giants	Nicholas Pooran	1,615	57
Deccan Chargers	Adam Gilchrist	1,220	46
Pune Warriors	Robin Uthappa	1,103	45
Gujarat Lions	Suresh Raina	841	29
Kochi Tuskers Kerala	Brendon McCullum	357	13

Rebranded clubs are shown separately because the ledger genuinely splits: Punjab's Kings XI years produced a leading scorer who left in 2017, and the Punjab Kings figure belongs to a wicketkeeper who was uncapped when the name changed. Only two men top a franchise list at a club they were still contracted to in 2026 — Samson at Rajasthan until his move to Chennai, and Gill at Gujarat Titans.

Note also how few innings the highest figures took. Warner made 4,014 for Sunrisers in 95 innings; Dhoni needed 214 to make 4,865 for Chennai, because a finisher rarely bats twelve overs.

The scoring inflation that reshaped the list

Season	Innings	Runs per over	Average innings total	200+ totals	Sixes
2008	116	8.31	154.6	11	623
2013	152	7.68	148.3	4	675
2018	120	8.65	165.8	15	872
2022	148	8.54	164.8	18	1,062
2023	147	8.99	174.7	37	1,124
2024	142	9.56	182.9	41	1,261
2025	146	9.63	181.5	52	1,301
2026	147	9.88	186.7	65	1,426

The competition's slowest season was 2013, at 7.68 an over. Thirteen years later a side needs 187 to post a par total and sixty-five innings a season pass 200. That shift is why the leaderboard is not a clean ranking of ability across eras. Gautam Gambhir's 4,217 runs at 123.88 were made almost entirely before 2016 and were highly valued at the time; the same strike rate today would not survive a season.

It also explains why several of the newest names climb so fast. Sai Sudharsan reached 2,515 runs in 57 innings, Rishabh Pant 3,865 in 136 and Ishan Kishan 3,600 in 127 — totals that would have taken a decade in the first half of the competition's life. The 2016 season, which produced Kohli's 973 and de Villiers' 687 in the same batting order, sits awkwardly between the two eras: extreme individual output, unremarkable collective run rate.

Volume against rate

The aggregate list rewards availability. Sorting the same players by runs per ball faced tells a different story. Three examples make the point.

• Kohli has 9,336 runs from 6,926 balls. De Villiers made 5,162 from 3,403 — barely half the deliveries, at a strike rate seventeen points higher, in the same order for a decade.
• Chris Gayle scored 4,965 from 141 innings with 357 sixes, the largest six count in the competition's history. He is eleventh on the run list and first by a distance on impact per ball faced among players with more than 3,000 runs.
• MS Dhoni's 5,439 came with ninety-nine not-outs, a figure no other batter approaches. His average of 38.30 is inflated by a role that specifically avoided dismissal, and his twenty-four fifties in 241 innings show what the role cost him in aggregate.

Career averages and rates on their own qualification bars are set out on the IPL best batting averages and IPL best batting strike rates pages, which is the right place to read this table against.

Four things the run list shows

Longevity beats method, up to a point. The top eight all played ten seasons or more. The only players inside the top twenty with fewer than nine seasons are Buttler, Gill and Sudharsan, all of whom scored at over 142.

Indian batters dominate by number, overseas batters by rate. Of the top twenty-five, eighteen are India-qualified, but the highest strike rates in that group belong to de Villiers, Buttler, Gayle and Suryakumar Yadav — three of the four overseas.

Hundreds are not how big aggregates are built. Dhoni, Uthappa, Karthik, du Plessis and Gambhir are all inside the top twenty with no century between them; between them they have 5,439, 4,952, 4,842, 4,773 and 4,217 runs. Fifties and thirties, repeated for a decade, do the work. The full century record is on the IPL most centuries page.

The next 9,000 will arrive faster. Kohli needed nineteen seasons to reach 9,336 at 40.42. Sudharsan's first five seasons produced 2,515 at 48.37, and 2026 alone put 27,450 runs on the board across 147 innings — roughly 50 per cent more scoring than the 2013 baseline from a similar number of innings. Aggregate records set in this decade will be measured against far more permissive conditions than the ones the list's founding names batted in.

For the wider context of how the tournament grew from eight teams to a ten-team, seventy-four-match season, and where its records sit inside the domestic game, start from cricket in India.

Sources and method

All batting figures on this page are computed from the public ball-by-ball archive published by Cricsheet (cricsheet.org, ODC-BY 1.0), covering every one of the 1,243 IPL matches played between 18 April 2008 and the final on 31 May 2026. Nothing here is estimated.

Runs are runs off the bat. Balls faced exclude wides but include no-balls, which is the convention used on published scorecards, so the strike rates here should reconcile with them. Super-over deliveries are excluded from every total, since they do not count towards career aggregates. Matches are appearances in a named XI; innings are occasions the player came to the crease, which is why the two columns differ most for finishers and least for openers.

Averages divide runs by completed innings, with retirements treated as not out. Franchise names are given as they stood at the time of the match, and rebranded clubs are listed separately where the split changes the answer, since Kings XI Punjab and Punjab Kings did not field the same squads. Orange Cap winners were derived by taking the leading run-scorer for each season from the same archive and cross-checked against the published season records.

Season labels follow the year the tournament was played rather than the split-year notation used in the source data, so 2007/08 is shown as 2008, 2009/10 as 2010 and 2020/21 as 2020. Records of this kind move with every season; the figures above are current to the end of the 2026 tournament and no later.