India football skipper Sunil Chhetri visited the Bangalore side during the ongoing Indian T20 League 2023. The tournament’s opener saw the defending champions Gujarat beating Chennai. Meanwhile, the three-time finalists, Bangalore will play their first game on April 2 against five-time winners, Mumbai at the Chinnanswamy Stadium. Ahead of the game, Chhetri met the players during the practice session.
The last time he met the Red Army was during the 2019 Indian T20 League. With the previous three seasons played under the cloud of COVID-19, meet-ups like these weren’t taking place. However, with the threat of the pandemic gone, these activities are likely to take place more and more. Meanwhile, the Bengaluru FC skipper met the players and head coach, Sanjay Bangar. He also had some laughs with Virat Kohli.
Watch the video here
Cross culture of sports! Indian football captain and legend Sunil Chhetri dropped by at the Chinnaswamy to watch RCB practice, and spent time with Virat Kohli and the boys. @chetrisunil11's fielding skills are ?#PlayBold #????RCB #IPL2023 pic.twitter.com/I87yvEDg8G
— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) April 1, 2023
Mumbai has had an upper hand over Bangalore
Talking about the Head to Head between the two teams, both have played each other in 32 games. Out of them, 19 won by the Blue Brigade, Mumbai while the rest by Bangalore. Interestingly, none of their games ended with no result. Meanwhile, the last time Mumbai won against Bangalore was in 2020.
In that game, Suryakumar Yadav played a match-winning inning and made a famous gesture of keeping calm toward his teammates. Since then, the team hasn’t been able to win against their metro-city rival. In the last three games played between these teams in 2021 and 2022, all of them have been won by the Faf du Plessis-led side.
Notably, in both seasons, the Rohit Sharma-led side failed to qualify for the playoffs with them finishing last in the 15th season. On the other hand, since 2020, Bangalore has been regularly qualifying for the playoffs even though they did previously as well (2009, 2010, 2011, 2015, and 2016). Both teams would look to have a strong start in the tournament. Not to forget, Mumbai has a fantastic record at the Chinnaswamy stadium, losing only two games (2013 and 2018) so far.
