Bengaluru, it seems, didn't sleep on Saturday night. With it being a weekend, the party got all the more harder as fans of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) stormed the streets and neighbourhood in the Karnataka capital to celebrate well past midnight, after their team's comeback story of IPL 2024 reached the playoffs and eliminated five-time champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) from the tournament.
Virat Kohli's status as an RCB icon is nothing short of what MS Dhoni means to CSK. But in his 17th season of the tournament with RCB, the team's former captain has never had a chance to lift the trophy. He, and his teammates, have given themselves another opportunity by entering the playoffs.
IPL 2024: Results Points Table
RCB beat CSK by 27 runs and stopped the visitors short of the 201-run mark in chase, which would have been enough for CSK to enter the playoffs despite losing. But they could muster only 191 for 7 while chasing RCB's 218 for 5.
Videos of RCB fans thronging the streets in Bengaluru to celebrate have gone viral since Saturday night. In one such video clip floating on social media, it's well past midnight and RCB fans were still on the streets, chanting "Kohli, Kohli".
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RCB's comeback to enter the playoffs is epic in nature, as they had lost seven of their first eight matches this season and then came back to win the next six in a row to confirm a top four spot for themselves on the points table.
The win took RCB's points tally to 14, the same as CSK, but the Bengaluru outfit leapfrogged Chennai in the net run-rate column and assured themselves of a fourth-place finish, which clubs them with Kolkata Knight Riders, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals as the four teams to fight it out in the playoffs.
RCB will feature in the Eliminator, against the team that finishes third. If RCB win, they will then play the Qualifier 2, which will be against the team that loses in Qualifier 1.
