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Cricket PlayersVirat Kohli and RCB men welcome Smriti Mandhana's WPL champions with golden guard of honour, gesture gives goosebumps
Virat Kohli and the RCB men's team lined up to give the women's team a rousing welcome during the RCB unbox event.
The RCB unbox event kicked off with much pomp and fanfare at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Tuesday, but overshadowing all the other star-studded activities that were lined up, a gesture from the RCB men's team towards their women compatriots took the cake. With Virat Kohli in attendance, RCB men formed a guard of honour to welcome the RCB's WPL title winning team, led by Smriti Mandhana on the field. The sight of the captain and rest of her team walking out amid all the cheering, hooting and clapping is one that guarantees goosebumps.
And why not. The women deserve every bit of. In just their second attempt, RCB ended the wait of thousands of Bengaluru fans as they beat Delhi Capitals in the final of the WPL 2024 to win the championship. This is something the men team have been unable to do in the last 16 years of the IPL despite their best attempts. RCB came close to winning thrice, reaching the IPL final on three different instances – 2009, 2011 and 2016 – only to return empty-handed.
But their women counterparts, on the other hand, ended the reverberating chants of 'Ee sala Cup Namde' (This year, the cup will be ours) to 'Ee sala Cup Namdu', which translates to 'This year, the cup is ours'. And hence, to celebrate the occasion, the men's team showed their admiration and respect for the 15 wonderful athletes that made the franchise's dream come true on Sunday. The gesture was hailed by users on X.
Watch the outstanding gesture below:
The women's team were on one of the stands as the Unbox event got underway. After a couple of songs, it was time for Mandhana and the rest of the girls to take in all the love and affection of the crowd. After being bestowed the guard of honour, all members of the RCB's victorious WPL campaign took a winning lap of the ground. After all, it was at this very venue that the first leg of the WPL 2024 was played, where RCB played five matches and won three.
The noise was deafening
Each time it was Mandhana's chance to speak during the toss, she would have to pause and wait for the crowd to calm down. Such is the madness towards RCB, and it was only fitting that some of them were back here to give their heroes a rousing reception.
The RCB unbox, originally scheduled to begin around 4PM, was off to a delayed start amid streaming glitches. Hundreds of fans faced issues while streaming the event on RCB's website and app, leading to outage complaints all around. Some said the site crashed, while for others, the link was simply not accessible. The franchise finally decided to switch the live streaming on RCB's YouTube channel but just before Raghu Dixit could perform, the YT stream conked off too.
