{"id":555322,"date":"2026-03-21T17:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T17:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/555322\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T17:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T17:02:18","slug":"kohli-urges-rcb-players-to-stay-ahead-and-give-120-in-title-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/555322\/","title":{"rendered":"Kohli urges RCB players to ‘stay ahead and give 120%’ in title defence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virat Kohli<\/a> wants Royal Challengers Bengaluru<\/a> (RCB) players to stay ahead of the competition and give their 120% as they look to defend their title.<\/p>\n

Addressing the squad during their first training session in familiar surroundings at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Kohli said, “We worked really hard over the last two to three seasons to achieve what we did last year, and it’s only going to get tougher because other teams are going to come hard at us. We don’t waste these days. We stay ahead. So switch on now\u2026 we must give our 120%.”<\/p>\n

Head coach Andy Flower<\/a> suggested the squad had strengthened through the auction cycle and reiterated the side’s ambition to defend the title.<\/p>\n

“We had an interesting auction and I think we’ve improved our squad, to be quite frank,” Flower said. “We’ve brought in some great new additions. Integrating them into the RCB way alongside established players led by Virat and Rajat [Patidar] is an exciting part of building this team.<\/p>\n

“There is one difference this year, we’ve got a star on our shirt. That’s a very proud feeling for all RCB fans. But that season is gone. Now we have a new challenge ahead, and it’s an exciting one. We’re here to win this year’s IPL.”<\/p>\n

RCB will begin their title defence against Sunrisers Hyderabad on March 28 at home – a factor Flower believes could be significant in setting early momentum, especially given Bengaluru’s traditionally high-scoring conditions.<\/p>\n

“Our first game is here at the Chinnaswamy, which is a fantastic opportunity for us to build momentum early and be welcomed by our home fans.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virat Kohli wants Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) players to stay ahead of the competition and give their 120%…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-555322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}