BENGALURU: Virat Kohli’s 58th List A hundred resembled a grand opera played inside an empty Royal Albert Hall.

Kohli’s 83-ball knock for Delhi against Andhra in the Vijay Hazare Trophy was magnificent as usual in its execution, but there were no screaming spectators to garnish the occasion here at the BCCI Centre of Excellence.

The Karnataka government’s reticence to grant permission to host matches at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium citing security reasons forced the KSCA to shift matches to CoE, and the venue was out of bounds for fans.

So, instead of a roaring house, a tranche of snail-paced cargo trucks, a large posse of police personnel and few fans gawking over the barbed concrete walls provided an austere setting for Kohli’s return to Vijay Hazare Trophy after 15 years. Kohli himself might have found it a tad bizarre. For a better part of the last decade and half, the 37-year-old has always walked onto a cricket field to an uproarious welcome.

Even his return to Ranji Trophy earlier this year after a hiatus of 12 years at Ferozeshah Kotla had drawn huge crowds.

But on a sunny Wednesday, Kohli made a rather unfamiliar, lonely walk to the middle — no cheers, no chants of “Kohli... Kohli!” and not even that ubiquitous RCB cries that reverberate around stadiums irrespective of the formats he plays. The thick veil of silence was breached only when the fielding side players chatted among themselves or when occasional applause emanated from the respective dressing rooms. But the entire sight had its own charm. A champion cricketer who has always been flanked on either side by fame and fans, was now doing it all alone.

There were short chats and high-fives with teammates, a diving stop to deny Ricky Bhui another boundary, and a quick word of advice to Delhi pacer Navdeep Saini when Andhra batters carted him around. Kohli even jived to some imaginary tune. Perhaps, an effort to recreate an air of exuberance and theatre around him, something he loves to do so dearly on a cricket field.

He was trying to flame the dramatist inside him, which often drove him to some dizzying peaks.

But that situational solitude did not affect his batting. Barring a couple of drops, Kohli slipped into his familiar ‘Chase Master’ garb with ease. His money shots were on full view on Wednesday — pulls, charge to spinners, flicks, cuts and those beautiful perpendicular bat straight drives.

Fifty came in 39 balls and 100 in 83 balls, but none of those moments were celebrated with usual gusto. But a simple wave to the dressing room marked the occasion.

In fact, silence shrouded those moments so deep that a blink could have made one miss them.

But there was another side to it. Perhaps, Kohli too might have enjoyed that slice of loneliness which he often craves for.

That search for privacy has made him set an alternate base in London apart from his uber posh Mumbai dwelling. Here, he had all the desired isolation.

RANCHI: Bihar’s batters went on a record-breaking spree with teen sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi and skipper Sakibul Gani leading the carnage with the quickest hundreds to power them to a world record team total of 574/6 in a Vijay Hazare Trophy match here Wednesday.

Bearing the brunt of the sustained onslaught in the plate group match was minnows Arunachal Pradesh, as Gani (128 off 40 balls) raced to his hundred in just 32 balls, the fastest by Indian in List A cricket.

This was after Suryavanshi went berserk en route to a blistering 84-ball 190, including hitting 15 sixes, while reaching the three-figure mark in just 36 balls.

Wicketkeeper Ayush Loharuka too joined the party with a 116 off 56 balls but, at a venue that has already witnessed 49 fours and 38 sixes, his whirlwind knock was somewhat put to shade by the unreal batting of Suryavanshi and Gani.

With his brutal onslaught against an attack that was pedestrian in terms of quality, 14-yearold opener Suryavanshi lit up the start of the 50-over domestic tournament before his senior colleagues took over to take their team to a world record total in this form of the game.

Thanks to the hundreds by the troika of Suryavanshi, Gani and Loharuka, Bihar comfortably shattered the previous record held by Tamil Nadu (506/2 also vs Arunachal Pradesh in 2022-23 season).

Besides his 15 maximums, Suryavanshi also smashed 16 fours during his stay in the middle, only three days after his failure in the final of the U19 Asia Cup against Pakistan in the UAE.