New Delhi: Team India's former skipper Virat Kohli was included in the Royal Challengers Bangalore for US $ 30,000 in the first season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Virat has been part of the Bangalore-based franchise since the year 2008, and has been one of the most loyal players to his team. He is the only player in IPL history who is playing for the same team since the beginning of the tournament. Virat Kohli is the only player in IPL to play 200 matches from the same team.
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Meanwhile, Virat recently opened up on his wife Anushka Sharma's 'Bangalore connection', revealing that she has spent more time here than the cricketer and has a special connection with the city.
“She’s a Bangalore girl. She’s grown up there. She’s spent way more time than I have in Bangalore, not many people know this. And she has a special connection with the city already. So obviously she feels very happy that I am playing for RCB and my commitment is always going to be for this franchise and for this city…,” Kohli said in a RCB podcast as per a CricTracker report.
“She obviously can feel the sadness when we don’t do well as well. And as I said, there’s a special connect with Bangalore already so for her it was just things coming together in the most perfect manner that I happened to play in the city and she gets to go back to Bangalore and relive her special memories of growing up there. And she absolutely loves it,” he added.
Ahead of the IPL 2022 mega-auction, Virat was retained by Royal Challengers Bangalore as their first player. The franchise paid him a retainer fee of INR 15 crore.
The IPL 2022 auction will be a two-day affair and will take place on February 12 and 13 in Bengaluru. Barring the six cricketers signed by two new IPL teams Lucknow and Ahmedabad and a handful players retained by the 8 franchises, all players included in the final list for IPL auction will go under the hammer.