No cricket, no cry - white 'Virat 18' tribute lifts the gloom at wet Chinnaswamy

The periphery of the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on IPL match days is a hive of activity. The hawkers selling Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) jerseys and caps and flags, fans looking for any last-minute tickets, those with tickets searching for their gates, and most wearing the RCB red and gold, invariably with "Virat 18" on the back.

The vibe was pretty much the same when IPL 2025 resumed after a week-long break in Bengaluru, with RCB taking on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). But there was one visible change. Yes, there were plenty of red jerseys, but amid those were white shirts… a lot of them.

It started with a simple social media post, which called on RCB fans to pay tribute to Virat Kohli's Test legacy by wearing a white Kohli shirt to the RCB-KKR game after he had announced his retirement from the format last week. The posts multiplied and soon went viral. But would people actually turn up in whites? The answer was a resounding yes.

The signs were there on the eve of the game when some hawkers outside the venue were spotted selling white India jerseys with "Virat 18" on the back, and they had plenty of takers. On match day, it became even bigger. The usual RCB jerseys were available in huge numbers, but the white ones quickly became the crowd favourite. They were everywhere and everyone wanted to have a piece of it. Women, men, children - Bengaluru had turned white for their "King".

The IPL is a lot about the glitz, the loud music, the colour, the buzz, the vibrancy. The red RCB flags and the red and gold jerseys are as much a part of the Chinnaswamy feel as are the "Aaar-ceee-beee" chants. But Saturday wasn't usual. This was Kohli's first game after his retirement from Test cricket. So it didn't matter that the forecast was for incessant rain in the evening, which ended up washing the game out. The fans wanted to be there and white was their colour of choice.

"I got to know about this through Instagram. I didn't even have a ticket for this game, I somehow scrambled for it today and got it," Naman, an RCB fan, said when we caught up with him. "Virat Kohli is the best cricketer I have ever seen, and it was my duty to give him a tribute. He shouldn't have retired."

Another fan, Vineet, said, "It is a very surprising retirement. We wanted him to have a farewell game. He should have had a farewell game. That unfortunately won't be happening now. He is the absolute GOAT of Test cricket, and this should feel like a Test match for him."

All this was before the game. By 5.30pm, the clouds overhead that had been threatening all afternoon started getting darker. That didn't stop fans from gathering around the gate where the team buses get in from. When the buses arrived, at 6pm, it was pandemonium. Around the same time, though, to everyone's dismay, it started drizzling, and within 20 minutes, it came pelting down.

People who had gotten in took shelter at the back of the stands. It was only around 8pm, when the rain eased and people went to their seats, that the full effect of the social-media campaign could be seen. It was a sea of white.

This was unusual, almost unprecedented. People coming for a Test match in India - and the numbers are often not fantastic - often sport the India blue and not the India white.

The stadium organisers soon took note. Minutes later, the main screen at the venue displayed Kohli's Test numbers while the smaller screens flashed "Kohli 18" in white. The rain continued.

Eventually, the rain gods won, and around 10.25pm, the match was called off without a ball bowled. There was obvious disappointment, but the fans close to the Roger Binny Stand made sure to sign off by unfurling a huge banner that read, "Every single one of us loves Virat Kohli. Thank you for making red ball cricket exciting again."

For a generation of fans who have grown up watching T20 cricket, Kohli was a key reason their attention never went away from Test cricket. Now that he has stepped away from the format, his fans wanted to give him a fitting tribute, but they had to contend with only the occasional image on the screen of Kohli sitting in the change room. They will have another chance when RCB play Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on May 23 in the last home game of the season. Will Chinnaswamy turn white once again?