RCB - IPL 2025 Champion: 18 years journey

I started blogging around 2010. Ever since then, it was my dream to write a post on RCB's victory in IPL. I had been waiting for 15 years for this day to express my thoughts towards my team RCB.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru, the RCB team has lifted the IPL trophy for the first time in 2025 ever since IPL commenced in 2008.

I am not a native of Tamil Nadu or Karnataka to become an ardent fan of the respective state team.
I am not a fan of any player in the Indian Cricket Team.
I don't watch cricket matches as my peers did, in schools and colleges.

The RCB team was founded by the company, in which my father was an employee. Initially, with a sense of gratitude towards the management, I started watching IPL matches just for RCB. 

In 2008, RCB was the penultimate team from the bottom of the table. 

In 2009, they stood Top 3 in the table, and they were the Runners in the season after competing with their opponent Deccan Chargers in the finals. I still remember those days, where RCB won CSK in the semi-final and entered as finalist raising hopes for every RCB fan. But in the final match, RCB gave it to the opponent voluntarily is what every spectator felt. This question, "why did they lose such an easy match?" pondered every mind, who were disappointed with the team. Ever since then, every season became a struggle for RCB. Any loyal fan would say, "they have lost a match that could be won, and nothing would go favorably hereafter". Fans were disappointed that badly. 

In 2011 and 2016, they made up to the finals and ended up as Runners in those seasons. They were into the play-offs in nearly 10 seasons.

Three people have to be mentioned in this journey:

• The one who was playing for the team ever since its inception - Virat Kohli
• The one who retired from IPL when he was asked to play for another team (but initially he started from a different team) - AB De Villiers
• The one who keeps supporting the team even after he played for another team - Chris Gayle

Special credits to Dinesh Karthik for mentoring the team players.

The previous Captains who were guiding this team also need a special mention:

• Rahul Dravid
• Anil Kumble
• Daniel Vettori
• Faf du Plessis

I did not watch even a single match in this season but kept myself updated with live scores whenever RCB played. 

Anyone who watches any game should be sportive enough to take win-lose results. But there was a hidden pain in me (and also many) that RCB became the only team which never lifted the trophy. They were mocked by other team fans. The situation became so pathetic that one team's fan openly stated in social media, "When your team cannot lift trophy even once, you don't dare to comment on others' games".

This post triggered many emotions and other teams' loyal fans gathered up to cheer up for RCB and RCB fans. I could see that difference in people's attitude since 2-3 yrs. This change gave new hopes of humanity. People started empathizing for a team which could never become a champion and started cheering them up in every crucial match. This shift of emotions literally made me happy, not because the support is for RCB, but because of the empathy people started to have for some other team that is not their favorite.

This way, I would say RCB has won so many hearts and today many are celebrating their victory.

Every season, every RCB fan would anticipate the team to lift the trophy, but in vain.
The slogan: R C B - Ee Saala Cup Namde (this year, the cup is ours) has just been a dream till 2024.

Thank you RCB! You have finally made it happen in 2025.