The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 began with a grand opening ceremony in March at Ahmedabad, with popular actress Rashmika Mandanna stealing the show with her energetic performance. The Kannada, Tamil and Telugu film industry star entertained the crowd with her dance moves on the songs “Saami” from “Pushpa: The Rise”, “Srivalli” from “Pushpa” and “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR”. Along with fellow actress Tamannah Bhatia and singer Arijit Singh, Rashmika made the opening ceremony a star-studded event.
.@iamRashmika reveals her RCB FAN-GIRL side. 🙈💓
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) May 1, 2023
From being a die-hard @ImVkohli fan to chanting ‘Ee Sala Cup Namde’, she is a TOTAL RCBian! 🤩
Tune-in to #LSGvRCB on #IPLonStar
Today | Pre-show at 6:30 PM & LIVE action at 7:30 PM | Star Sports Network#GameOn #BetterTogether pic.twitter.com/C3NkP9KRl0
Rashmika, in a recent interview with Star Sports, revealed that her favourite IPL team is Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) because she hails from Karnataka and they have the slogan “Ee Sala Cup Namde (this year the Cup is ours)”. She hopes to catch an RCB game this year and her favourite IPL cricketer is Virat Kohli, calling him “a swagger” and “awesome”.
RCB is set to face Lucknow Super Giants in an upcoming IPL match and they are aiming to overcome their over-reliance on their top-order batsmen Kohli, Faf du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell. The team has struggled to maintain momentum in the tournament and the second half of the competition requires a reduced margin for errors. The likes of Mahipal Lomror, Shahbaz Ahmed and Dinesh Karthik need to step up and provide support to the star players. Fielding and catching also needs improvement, as highlighted by Kohli himself after the team’s loss to KKR.
RCB’s stand-out bowler Mohammad Siraj needs support from other fast bowlers, while Harshal Patel needs to bring down his economy rate from 9.94 while handling the tough overs. Kohli will continue to lead the team unless du Plessis, who has been used as an ‘Impact Player’, regains full fitness.