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The fan who entered Eden Gardens in Kolkata to meet Virat Kohli at the Indian Premier League 2025 (IPL 2025) opening game has shared his encounter with the legendary batter. During the season opener between the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), a young boy by the name of Rituparno Pakhira ran towards Kohli in the second innings of the game.
Fan reveals conversation with Virat Kohli
After the young guy touched Kohli's feet, the star batter grabbed him up and hugged him before the security guards removed him. He recently talked about his encounter with Kohli after his detention, revealing that the RCB star advised him to flee quickly and implored him not to hit him.
“The moment I touched his feet, Virat Kohli sir, asked my name and said, ‘Jaldi se bhaag jaa (run away fast). He even asked the security to not hit me,” the 18-year-old was quoted as saying by Times of India.
In the first game, Kohli was in good form as he led the RCB by scoring with an incredible innings of 59* (36). He picked up where he left off the previous season and immediately targeted the bowling. Even KKR's top spinner Varun Chakravarthy was hammered by the star batter, who hit him with a six and a boundary. Together with Philip Salt (56 off 31), he joined a huge opening stand that saw the two score 95 runs for the first wicket off 51 balls.
RCB broke their four-match losing streak against KKR by easily chasing down the target of 175 in 16.2 overs thanks to their outstanding partnership. Earlier, Krunal Pandya choked Kolkata with three wickets in the middle overs, limiting them to 174/8 in their 20 overs.
The left-arm spinner concluded with stats of 3/29 in four overs after taking the significant wickets of Rinku Singh (12 off 10), Venkatesh Iyer (6 off 7), and Ajinkya Rahane (56 off 31). After RCB's resounding victory, he was rightfully named Player of the Match.
