Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders are much discussed rivalries of the Indian Premier League. Whenever the two teams have Locked horns, the spectators have witnessed electrifying matches and spicy controversies. Both the franchises have massive fan bases, but is the rivalry only about the fan bases?
No, it would be wrong to say that the rivalry exists between the two franchises, the feud roots back to the altercation between KKR’s left-handed opening batsman Gautam Gambhir and RCB’s right-handed batsman and an occasional medium-fast bowler Virat Kohli. This altercation was not foreseen by the ICT fans as both the cricketers played a crucial role in India’s 2011 World Cup victory. Gautam Gambhir who’s seven years to Virat Kohli was also appreciated for giving the Player of the Match trophy to Kohli when the youngster scored his maiden ODI century in 2009. But how did things take such a drastic turn, let’s decode.
IPL 2013: The seed of this contretemps
This controversy dates back to the match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore, where Gautam Gambhir was believed to have said something while sending off Kohli back to the pavilion after scoring 35 runs, which was not taken lightly by the latter.
Kohli returned to the field to have an ugly spat with Gambhir. Rajat Bhatia was seen dousing the fire by separating the two. This incident marked the onset of animosity between the two Delhi boys.
IPL 2015: Kohli-Gambhir again hits the headline with their clash
After two years, both Indian Cricketers were again caught by the camera, in a heated argument on field post the victory of RCB in Chinnaswamy in 2015.
Gautam’s remark fueled the fire
After the league, Gambhir passed many comments which questioned Virat Kohli’s captaincy for India. In one of his interviews Gambhir also called Kohli ‘not a shrewd captain’ and claimed him lucky to be retained as RCB captain for long.
IPL 2023: Not KKR & RCB, but it was RCB & LSG to brew some controversy in IPL16
Post a thrilling match between the two teams in Bangalore, Gambhir who was then the mentor of LSG, was seen pointing fingers on his lips as an expression to silence the Chinnaswamy’s crowd after Lucknow’s win.
In Lucknow, during the second fixture match Kohli’s team registered a win by 18 runs, after which the latter was seen replicating Gambhir’s gestures as a retort. After the match, a heated debate was caught on camera between Lucknow’s pace bowler Naveen Ul Haq and Kohli. Kohli then went to have a discussion with Mayer which was intervened by Gambhir. He took aside Mayer, then again the old rivals were seen in a verbal fight. IPL fined both the players 100 percent of their match fees for breaching the code of conduct.
Will something similar be witnessed this year too?
On 29th March, KKR with Gambhir as their Mentor and RCB with Kohli in form will be seen pitting against each other in the 10th match of the T20 league in Chinnaswamy today, Evening. As there’s been no reconciliation between the two players though they have maintained a cordial bond, fans are sitting in wait for a nail-biting match with a question whether today’s match will be a gentleman’s game or not.
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