The most-anticipated Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 Final has been a sore sight for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) army. The Punjab Kings’ (PBKS) skipper, Shreyas Iyer, won the toss and put RCB to bat first at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. While both teams are just a few hours away from clinching their maiden IPL 2025 trophy, the wicket of Virat Kohli has dampened the spirit of the RCBians.
Openers Phil Salt and Kohli got off to a rocky start. The English batter smacked Arshdeep Singh for 13 runs in the opening over before departing after hitting just one more boundary. No.3 batter, Mayank Agarwal, joined the party before he was taken out by Yuzvendra Chahal. The pressure was building on King Kohli as the fandom dreamt of breaking their 17-year-long trophy drought.
Earlier, PBKS kept Kohli away from the strike. His first boundary came on the first ball of the fourth over. However, at the end of four overs, the Delhi batter had faced only four deliveries and made seven runs. He then dealt in singles through the powerplay. His next boundaries didn’t come up until the 10th and 13th over. On the other end, Captain Rajat Patidar attempted to anchor the innings but was also dismissed.
Eventually, Kohli was snared by Azmatullah Omarzai as the scoreboard read 131/4, leaving RCB in grave trouble. His strike rate of 122.85 received flak as Kohli managed 43 runs from 35 balls, including three boundaries. He didn’t smash any sixes in his knock.
Here are some of the X (formerly Twitter) reactions after Kohli’s wicket.
More to follow…
