Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper Virat Kohli and the rest of the squad took part in a 'modified football' match as part of their preseason training for the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). RCB begin their campaign on September 21 in Dubai when they face Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). The Bangalore franchise took to social media and shared a video of their star players playing a football match, which saw Kohli's "Hot Dogs" being pitted against AB de Villiers' "Cool Cats".

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"Kicking off the IPL season with a football match has been a tradition at RCB for many years. It was all smiles in the camp when AB's Cool Cats took on Virat's Hot Dogs," RCB captioned their post on social media.

Shanker Basu, RCB's Strength and Conditioning coach, revealed in the video that playing football on the first day when the full squad becomes available is an RCB tradition.

"Let me put on record, I hate football for cricketers. It's highly injurious, I can only see risk and don't see any reward," Basu said.

The schedule was initially meant to be announced on Friday but some unknown delay forced the schedule to be announced on Sunday. There will be 10 doubleheaders with the first match starting at 3:30 PM IST and 2:00 PM UAE time.

All evening matches will start at 7:30 PM IST and 6:00 PM UAE time. In all, 24 matches will be held in Dubai, 20 in Abu Dhabi and 12 in Sharjah.