A rather odd incident, involving Virat Kohli and Danny Morrison, happened before the start of the Indian Premier League clash between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad on Thursday.
Royal Challengers Bangalore take on the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in a must-win game in the 2018 Indian Premier League (IPL) on Thursday. A loss for Virat Kohli's men against the table-toppers would mean they become the second team, after Delhi Daredevils, to be ruled out of contention for the Play-Offs.
Before the crunch match at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, though, a funny incident happened out in the middle. Commentator Danny Morrison, known for his exuberant and theatrical personality, put Kohli in a rather uncomfortable spot.
In an attempt to reiterate the importance of the game for RCB, Danny put his hand on Kohli's neck and said: "Checking, just checking. Are you nervous? Got to win here tonight. It's a big game. You've got to win!" By the end of his remarks, the discomfort in Danny's voice was palpable as Kohli was clearly taken aback and had a bit of a frown on his face.
The RCB skipper was, indeed, not too impressed with Danny's decision to place his hand on him out of nowhere. With a fake laugh, he said, "Yea, it's my 163rd IPL game. So, it's not one of the first few, you know."
Meanwhile, SRH captain Kane Williamson won the Toss and elected to field. While the hosts went in with an unchanged Playing XI, the visitors made one switch, that too a big one - Basil Thampi in place of Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
"We are gonna bowl. Hard to know how the surface will play, so we'll try and make use of it first with the ball in hand. Hopefully we can restrict them. We have one change: Basil Thampi comes in for Bhuvneshwar. Great opportunity for Basil tonight. Hopefully we can adapt to conditions," said Williamson.
Kohli, on the other hand, said he wasn't too unhappy batting first. "We wanted to bowl but SRH are not a bad side to bat first against, who bank on their bowling. Would be nice to test their batting with a score on board. We can play with freedom. We will try to do well in whatever we are doing first," said the talismanic batsman.
"We have been through these times before, so the key is to enjoy. There's no reason to think too much now because we have two (consecutive) wins. Another day in life, so just enjoy. We have won two games, so we are playing with the same side. We'll try and replicate the same tonight," he added.
Playing XIs
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli(c), Parthiv Patel(w), Moeen Ali, AB de Villiers, Mandeep Singh, Sarfaraz Khan, Colin de Grandhomme, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Shikhar Dhawan, Alex Hales, Kane Williamson(c), Manish Pandey, Deepak Hooda, Shakib Al Hasan, Shreevats Goswami(w), Rashid Khan, Siddarth Kaul, Sandeep Sharma, Basil Thampi.
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 "Virat Kohli and Danny Morrison during the Toss for the RCB-SRH match on Thursday")
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