Kohli, RCB and a Cup, at Long Last

The tears began to flow for Virat Kohli a long while before the IPL trophy was, at long last, won by Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Tuesday (June 3) night. For, Kohli, the very core of RCB’s identity, had begun choking up – right there in the Ahmedabad outfield and very much in the glare of the onlooking public – a good four balls before the finish of the final of the 2025 edition. But for a man who had patiently waited nearly two excruciating decades to win this piece of silverware, what were four more balls? So, Kohli blinked and cried, cried and blinked, uncaring to show his emotions, because for once, these tears were of the happy kind.

When the final over began at the Motera, Punjab Kings – Bengaluru’s opponents on the big night and fellow title-less team since the league’s inception in 2008 – needed 29 runs. Not impossible, so Kohli, his side and an entire city in the south of this country would only get themselves to believe once it was mathematically out of Punjab’s grasp. Together they held their breath as Josh Hazlewood ran in to bowl. The first ball, a low full toss, couldn’t be put away by Shashank Singh and resulted in a dot. No run. Instinctively, Kohli looked beyond the boundary and found AB de Villiers – a legend of this franchise and now a broadcaster – and pointed at his pupils. They were beginning to well up.

Immediately on the back of this came the first of the big moments. Amid resounding chants of those three alphabets, “RCB”, roared in unison by a crowd of about 100,000 in the biggest cricket stadium in the world, Hazlewood’s second ball was driven in the V but stopped in the in-field, yielding no runs. And Kohli let go, his cheeks flushing red as the tears drained out. He tried to pinch them in place, but to no avail. RCB were champions. The next four balls took a while to complete, given that they cost the bowling side three sixes and a four, but the celebrations had long begun, in the stands in Ahmedabad and in all of Bengaluru. The wait was all but over.

It truly ended, or began, not when the final ball flew for a six but as Kohli collapsed to his knees, pressing his head against the soil. At the same time, the night skies of Bengaluru lit up with firecrackers, social media posts from every part of the city recording a Diwali-esque outburst of joy. The most loyal, and vociferous, supporters of any IPL side rejoiced without inhibition, now possessing a trophy to show for their unconditional love and loyalty. For long they had been teased for their belief in a franchise that were simply unable to construct a champion side, despite having many greats pass through their playing eleven; despite having the all-time great in Kohli always embedded in their playing eleven. Tonight was finally their night.

“Ee saala Cup namdu (this year the cup is ours),” Kohli screamed into the broadcast camera in Kannada, giving a winning spin to the phrase ‘Ee saala Cup namde’ (this year the cup will be ours), a long-time mantra for the RCB fans, which, unfortunately, turned into a barb for the rest of the country to poke them and their team with, given the cup was never theirs. Now it was, which made Kohli ever-so-emotional.

“This win is as much for the fans as it is for the team. It’s been 18 long years,” said Kohli. “And this is far more special than winning it with anyone else. Because my heart is with Bangalore. My soul is with Bangalore. And as I said, this is the team I’m going to play for till the last day that I play the IPL.”

When that day will be is yet uncertain, but Kohli was very much with Bengaluru, then Bangalore, on the very first day of the IPL, literally, part of the team that took on Kolkata Knight Riders in the first match of the brand-new league in 2008. He was to be picked by Delhi (then Daredevils) in the first draft, but they went for Kohli’s World Cup Under-19 winning team-mate Pradeep Sangwan instead, and Kohli became a part of RCB’s fabric – the only one-franchise player to play all 18 seasons since the league’s inception.

They made the final the very next year, in 2009. And again in 2011 and 2016, the latter played at their beloved home ground of Chinnaswamy Stadium. That 2016 side consisted of three heavyweights right at the top in Kohli, who scored a record-setting 973 runs that season, alongside de Villiers and Chris Gayle. Yet they lost, the seasons in which they were one win away hurting them and their fans so much more. As the years passed, Kohli went on to break every batting record for the franchise, most runs (8661), most hundreds (8), most fifties (63), but the trophy just did not bend his way.

“I’ve given this team my youth, my pride, and my experience,” Kohli would say later. “And I’ve tried to win this every season that I played. I’ve given everything I have. To finally have this moment come, it’s an unbelievable feeling.”

Even more unbelievable, given it arrived at the ripe old age of 36, when he was semi-retired from the Indian team. That’s how long he had to wait. In the year he called it a day from Test cricket and a year after he had retired from playing T20s for his country, RCB assembled yet another side that threatened to win. Nine different Man of the Match winners, one of them of course being Kohli (RCB’s highest run-getter this season as well), helped them first top the table and then get through to the final. Put in to bat on the big night, they amassed 190 runs, largely scored around Kohli’s anchoring work of 43 runs. In an era where 200-plus totals are commonplace, that target seemed sub-par at the halfway stage.

But one of RCB’s more wily hires in Krunal Pandya, who has won the IPL three times for Mumbai Indians, stopped Punjab in their tracks with a magical spell of spin bowling – 2/17 in four overs. It made Pandya the player of the final and gave him his fourth IPL trophy. But more significantly, Pandya’s spell gave one man and his adopted city their first championship. And on the night, it was more than enough.

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