Dhoni goes nine times XII in an IPL that had four 200s in a day

In a season where the Impact Player rule offered captains the chance to play around with their team, Chennai Super Kings did what they usually do season after season - stick to the same XI(I). MS Dhoni chose to go with an unchanged team nine times in IPL 2023. Gujarat Titans named an unchanged XII four times. Five of the ten teams did not retain the same XII even once.

On April 30, a total of 827 runs were scored in the IPL, with four teams - Super Kings, Punjab Kings, Rajasthan Royals and Mumbai Indians - posting 200-plus totals. This was the first time such a thing has happened in the competition's history. That aggregate of 827 runs was beaten exactly a week later on May 7, when 829 were scored in two games between Titans, Lucknow Super Giants, Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad. The last day of the league stage - May 21 - fell short of the 800-mark by just four runs. These three days are in the top five of the most prolific double-header days in IPL history.

When Kings and Mumbai faced off in Mohali on May 3, both teams came into the fixture having conceded three successive 200-plus scores. Mumbai bowled first and conceded 214 - the first time any team had conceded four 200-plus totals in a row in the IPL. However, they made sure not to remain the only team with this dubious record. They overhauled the target with an over and a ball to spare and Kings became the second team in the IPL to concede four straight 200-plus totals.

Kings produced another first during their game in Chennai. With three to win off the final ball, Sikandar Raza scored exactly three runs off the bat to close the game. This was the first time - at least in the IPL - that a batter ran three off the last ball of a chase for the win. In matches for which ESPNcricinfo has ball-by-ball information, there's no other recorded instance in all T20s.

Glenn Phillips batted just seven balls to take the Player-of-the-Match award during Sunrisers' win against Royals. He whacked 25 runs before falling to an excellent catch by Shimron Hetmyer in the outfield. These were the least balls any player had batted and/or bowled to win the Player-of-the-Match award in the IPL.

Kings had two batters who could go on the attack from ball one. Shahrukh Khan hit a first-ball six three times this IPL. Jitesh Sharma did it twice. Nicholas Pooran and Yashasvi Jaiswal also hit a six off the first ball they faced twice in IPL 2023. Overall, 23 batters got their innings going with a six this season. That's one in around 49 innings, which is by far the best for any edition of the IPL.

It's one thing for a middle-order batter to make a quick dash off the blocks, it's another for an opener to do that. In a format where batters tend to suss up the conditions in the first over, Jaiswal put the opposition to sword right from the get-go. The Royals opener scored 110 runs at a strike rate of 174.6 in the first over this IPL. That's 14.4% of all the runs off the bat scored in the first over and at twice the strike rate of others. Only Adam Gilchrist has scored a higher share of runs in any over of a season. He made 110 runs at a strike rate of 154.9 in the first overs during the 2009 season - 19.1 percent of the runs scored.

During his unbeaten 101 against Titans, Virat Kohli hit Yash Dayal for three successive boundaries in the fourth over. This was the first time in four IPL seasons that Kohli hit three back-to-back boundaries. This, however, was one of 120 such instances in IPL 2023. No other season has had more such instances; the next best being IPL 2022, when batters hit boundaries off three or more successive balls they faced in an innings 102 times. Jaiswal and Suryakumar Yadav had seven such instances this season. Pooran had six.

Ajinkya Rahane made a fifty off just 19 balls against Mumbai. His other fifty in the season, against Kolkata Knight Riders, came off 24 balls. Vijay Shankar got both his fifties against Knight Riders in under 25 balls. These aren't batters one would normally associate with having strike rates over 200. That's how widespread this season's frenetic hitting has been. As many as 28 batters have at least one of their fifties in 25 balls or under - 12 higher than the previous best of 16 in 2018. There were 40 fifties hit in 25 balls or under in 2023 - more than double the previous highest of 19, also in 2018.

CSK bowled 136 balls against Super Giants in Chennai - 16 balls more than they should've bowled in the match. This is the longest innings in terms of balls bowled in IPL history. While that was a one-off instance for the CSK bowlers as far as the extras are concerned, the Mumbai bowlers have made a habit of it. They have bowled 86 extra balls in the 14 matches - an extra over on average in every match.