Indian cricket star Virat Kohli was fined yesterday for breaching the IPL code of conduct, after his side Royal Challengers Bangalore went down to Chennai in a nail-biting match.
Kohli’s wild celebration of Chennai batsman Shivam Dube’s wicket at a crucial point of the high-scoring game on Monday resulted in the sanction, according to media reports.
The fiery 34-year-old was fined 10 percent of his match fee after admitting to the offence, organisers said, without detailing what rule the batsman broke.
The tense match in front of a raucous capacity Bengaluru crowd witnessed a record-equalling 33 sixes and was finally won by Chennai Super Kings, led by M S Dhoni, by eight runs.
One of the best batsmen of the modern game, “King Kohli” has often run into trouble with his aggressive approach and no-holds-barred emotions on the cricket pitch.
He has had numerous run-ins with opposing players and was once reprimanded after hitting a plastic chair with a bat following his dismissal during an IPL match. He escaped a fine.
According to media reports this week, Kohli has fallen out with India’s former cricket chief Sourav Ganguly with the two men reportedly “unfollowing” each other on Instagram.
Kohli quit as Indian T20 skipper in late 2021 and in January 2022 was sacked from the one-day captaincy and gave up leading the Test side too after a reported fall-out with Ganguly.

Bangalore’s Maxwell rues narrow loss in IPL run-fest
Glenn Maxwell relishes being part of exciting games but the Royal Challengers Bangalore all-rounder did not hide his disappointment following their narrow defeat in Monday’s Indian Premier League (IPL) thriller against Chennai Super Kings.
It rained 33 sixes, equalling the league record, and a total of 444 runs were scored in a clash between two of the most popular IPL sides which was decided in the final over.
Eight sixes came off Maxwell’s bat as the Australian smashed 76 off 36 balls but it was not enough to avoid an eight-run loss for his side. Chennai amassed 226-6 with Devon Conway (83) and Shivam Dube (52) scoring hitting 11 sixes between them. Bangalore lost two early wickets but Maxwell and skipper Faf du Plessis (62) plundered 126 runs in 10 overs to turn the match on its head. Once they fell in successive overs, Chennai clawed back into the contest and restricted Bangalore to 218-8.
“It was a pretty exciting game of cricket regardless of how you look at it,” Maxwell told reporters. “There’s always going to be a winner or loser. Unfortunately we just fell a little bit short.”
“It’s a little bit disappointing. We did so well to get so close and we were in the position where we probably should have won the game.”