Ahead of Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s game with Lucknow Super Giants on Thursday, Lucknow’s enthusiasm for cricket became street art in the form of this 345-square-foot portrait of Virat Kohli outside the Ekana Stadium. Fans who made it said the enormous, black and white picture took 500 hours to complete and they specifically had Kohli wearing his India T20I shirt, not his RCB team colours.
A handmade tribute, not a billboard
This wasn’t a shiny, printed advertisement. The black and white installation stood out because it clearly took a lot of work to create, it wasn’t printed. By having Kohli in his T20I clothing, the fans are saying they support Kohli as a player first, and the team he’s currently on second.
Fans on social media are saying it proves how crazy people are about “King Kohli” and RCB in Lucknow, and one fan put it that Kohli has slowly and steadily “built this kingdom”. Even before the stadium gates opened, people were taking selfies with the artwork.
Roar before the first ball
Hundreds of people wearing Kohli’s number 18 shirts went to the stadium hours before the coin toss, and when he came out to practice, they made a sea of red near the boundary line. The shouting of “Virat, Virat!” was so loud it stopped Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Rajat Patidar from hearing the people commentating on the toss.
Kohli responded to the fans and their noise in between his practice exercises. Then, RCB’s captain won the toss and decided to have the other team bat first on a windy evening, making it feel more like a home game for RCB than an away one.
Why Lucknow keeps showing up for Kohli
This isn’t just how the fans feel about Kohli, it’s shown in his stats. In his three previous matches at Ekana, Kohli has scored 128 runs, including a half-century. He’s usually played well here, and the city seems to feel the same way about him.
Lucknow has been one of Kohli’s most supportive cities for a long time, and Thursday made that even clearer. The portrait acted as a central point for fans who came to the game early and continued to be very vocal.
How the moment shaped the build-up
The huge portrait became the biggest thing before the game started, taking people’s attention away from what the teams would be like and focusing on the energy of the crowd. It showed that in Indian cities where cricket is important, the culture and the sport are mixed together, and a painted picture made by people can be more noticeable than digital displays.
Here are the match-night flashpoints the crowd seized on:
– The RCB skipper won the toss and chose to field
– Crowd noise disrupted the toss audio
– Kohli acknowledged fans during warm-ups
LSG’s reset and the stakes
While RCB were enjoying the atmosphere, Lucknow Super Giants really needed to win. They were last in the league table and made three changes to their team because of this. Josh Inglis was out with a minor injury, and Mohsin Khan and Avesh Khan weren’t playing either.
As a change in plan, young Arshin Kulkarni opened the batting with Mitchell Marsh. Spin bowlers Digvesh Rathi and Shahbaz Ahmed replaced the fast bowlers, which suggested the pitch would be better for a bowler who changes the spin than one who bowls very quickly.
What comes next
Kohli’s history of playing well at this ground, the loud support from the away crowd, and the fact that a 345-square-foot picture was made for him all create both pressure and opportunity. If the fans’ evening was all about them before the toss, whether Kohli, the city’s favourite player to finish an innings, could turn all that support into runs would decide what happened during the game.
