Star man Virat Kohli’s return to the league did not go as he would have liked as Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) were comprehensively defeated by Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the IPL 2024 opener on Friday, March 22. has been out of action since early January as he captained the England Test series due to personal circumstances. He and his wife Anushka Sharma welcomed their second child last month, and Kohli was in London to spend some time with the family.
On his return to action, Kohli struggled to time the ball and scored a clumsy 21 off 20 balls. After the defending champions defeated RCB by six wickets, CSK batsman Sameer Rizvi’s gesture for Kohli went viral. As players from both dugouts exchanged greetings, Rizvi in particular removed his cap while shaking hands with Kohli.
After a video of it went viral on social media, Rizvi took to Instagram and captioned a picture with Kohli.
Sameer Rizvi in particular took off his cap while shaking hands with Virat Kohli pic.twitter.com/sVbORwnlkQ
— (@wrognxvirat) March 23, 2024
“Forever a legend,” he captioned the post.
Despite a frustrating outing with the bat, Kohli entertained the fans and some of his teammates with his quirky dance to Thalapathy Vijay’s hit, Appadi Podu.
Meanwhile, CSK, who have not lost to RCB at home since 2008, kept their enviable record intact with a six-wicket win in the first match of IPL 2024.
Mustafizur, with his best ever IPL figures of 4/29 in four overs, was largely responsible for restricting RCB to 173 for six on a good batting track, where a sixth wicket of 95 runs deflected 50 balls between Anuj Rawat (48 off 25). balls) and Dinesh Karthik (38 not out off 26 balls) was the visitors’ only save.
Jadeja (25 not out off 17 balls) brought his wealth of experience just when things could have gotten tricky in the chase, rushing a rusty Dube (34 off 28 balls) into completing some quick doubles to keep the chase in 18 .4 overs to complete. Dube also grew more confident in Jadeja’s company towards the end as he ended the chase in no time.
(With PTI inputs)
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