After the postponement of the IPL, the excitement of cricket enthusiasts in the City of Nawabs, Lucknow, was dampened, as they had been eagerly waiting for today’s crucial clash between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).

Most of the cricket lovers also wanted to watch Virat Kohli in action in today’s match. All the 45,000 tickets for the match to be held at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Stadium here from 7:30 PM were sold out.

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A day before the match, on Thursday, players of both teams practiced at Ekana Stadium.

RCB player Virat Kohli stayed on the field for two hours. He batted for 20 minutes and played a total of 26 balls. During this time, Kohli appeared aggressively and made many big hits.

When Kohli came for practice yesterday, LSG captain Rishabh Pant hugged him. After this, Kohli was seen talking to Lucknow’s mentor Zaheer Khan. Romario Shepherd of RCB also hit long sixes during the practice session.

LSG captain Rishabh Pant also practiced fiercely in the net. He was seen missing the ball many times while trying to apply long shots.

Apart from today’s match between LSG and RCB, the BCCI has postponed all other IPL matches due to the war-like situation between India and Pakistan.

However, BCCI has not given new dates for the remaining 12 matches in this season of the IPL. The final match of the IPL was scheduled to be played on May 25.

Both LSG and RCB have foreign players in their teams. The Lucknow team has six foreign players, including David Miller of South Africa, Aiden Markram, Matthew Breetzke, Australia’s Mitchell Marsh, and West Indies’ Shamar Joseph and Nicholas Pooran. In addition, the team’s head coach is Australia’s Justin Langer, with South Africa’s Lance Klusener serving as assistant coach and Jonty Rhodes as the fielding coach.

At the same time, there are eight foreign players in the Bangalore team. These include Josh Hazlewood of Australia, Tim David, Liam Livingstone of England, Jacob Bethell, Phil Salt, Romario Shepherd of the West Indies, Lungi Ngidi of South Africa, and Nuwan Thushara of Sri Lanka. In addition, Bangalore’s head coach is Andy Flower from Zimbabwe.

Authorities here said that arrangements were underway to send all the players to their respective native places.