The incessant rain couldn’t quite spoil the occasion, sparked by a social-media call to action, and the fans will have one more go at their white-shirt tribute to Virat Kohli on May 23
Ashish Pant18-May-2025The periphery of the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on IPL match days is a hive of activity. The hawkers selling Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) jerseys and caps and flags, fans looking for any last-minute tickets, those with tickets searching for their gates, and most wearing the RCB red and gold, invariably with “Virat 18” on the back.The vibe was pretty much the same when IPL 2025 resumed after a week-long break in Bengaluru, with RCB taking on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). But there was one visible change. Yes, there were plenty of red jerseys, but amid those were white shirts… a lot of them.It started with a simple social media post, which called on RCB fans to pay tribute to Virat Kohli’s Test legacy by wearing a white Kohli shirt to the RCB-KKR game after he had announced his retirement from the format last week. The posts multiplied and soon went viral. But would people actually turn up in whites? The answer was a resounding yes.Related
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The signs were there on the eve of the game when some hawkers outside the venue were spotted selling white India jerseys with “Virat 18” on the back, and they had plenty of takers. On match day, it became even bigger. The usual RCB jerseys were available in huge numbers, but the white ones quickly became the crowd favourite. They were everywhere and everyone wanted to have a piece of it. Women, men, children – Bengaluru had turned white for their “King”.The IPL is a lot about the glitz, the loud music, the colour, the buzz, the vibrancy. The red RCB flags and the red and gold jerseys are as much a part of the Chinnaswamy feel as are the “Aaar-ceee-beee” chants. But Saturday wasn’t usual. This was Kohli’s first game after his retirement from Test cricket. So it didn’t matter that the forecast was for incessant rain in the evening, which ended up washing the game out. The fans wanted to be there and white was their colour of choice.”I got to know about this through Instagram. I didn’t even have a ticket for this game, I somehow scrambled for it today and got it,” Naman, an RCB fan, said when we caught up with him. “Virat Kohli is the best cricketer I have ever seen, and it was my duty to give him a tribute. He shouldn’t have retired.”
Chinnaswamy stadium is a proper vibe today. A sea of white amidst the usual red #RCBvKKR #ViratKohli pic.twitter.com/lQqNLaawhN
— Ashish Pant (@ashishpant43) May 17, 2025