By Prakash Nair 
Bengaluru, March 22: So here is what happened on Sunday. Someone on Instagram posted a story about Virat Kohli making some big demands from RCB. The story spread like wildfire, people started talking, some started getting angry, and within a few hours, Kohli himself saw it. He did not call anyone. He did not write a long post. He just put two laughing emojis on it and moved on with his day.
That was it. Story over.
The Rumour That Got Too Big Too Fast
The post came from an Instagram page called @worldinlast24hrs. If you have spent any time on Indian cricket social media, you know the type. Not really a news page. Not really a fan page either. Just one of those accounts that posts constantly, sources nothing, and banks on the fact that nobody is really checking.
What they claimed was this: that Kohli had gone to the RCB management and asked for chartered flights between India and London. And that whenever there was a gap of more than three days between two RCB matches, he wanted to fly back to London and return just before the next game. Now read that again.
Chartered flights. Back and forth. India to London. Every few days. During the IPL.
If you have ever seen an IPL schedule, you know how tight those match windows are. The idea that anyone, let alone someone who has played this tournament for nearly two decades, would be doing transatlantic flights every three days is, to put it plainly, ridiculous. But the thing about social media is that ridiculous does not mean unpopular. If anything, the more outrageous the claim, the faster it travels.
A lot of fans bought it. Some of them went a step further and started criticising Kohli, saying he had lost his passion for the game, that he did not care about RCB the way he used to. Old loyalties were being questioned in the comments section based on a post that had no source, no quote, and no journalist’s name attached to it.
That is where we are with cricket coverage in 2026.
What Kohli Actually Did
He did not get on a call with a TV channel. He did not ask RCB’s PR team to issue a denial. He went on his Instagram story, reshared the post, and put two laughing emojis on it. That was the entire response.
And honestly, it was the right one. Because when you treat a joke like a joke, you do not accidentally give it more weight than it deserves. A long denial would have kept the conversation going for days. Two emojis killed it in an afternoon.
After Kohli posted that story, the @worldinlast24hrs page deleted the original post, admitted the information was wrong and unverified, and then said their account crashed because of how much traffic came in after Kohli’s reaction.
That last bit is almost funny. They put out a false story, got exposed by the very person they were writing about, and then their own account broke under the weight of the attention. It is the kind of ending that writes itself.
People online had a field day. Someone wrote that the story was “so brutal even Kohli couldn’t resist fact-checking.” Another person just said “Don’t mess with King Kohli.” There was a lot of laughing. Deservedly so.
But Here Is the Part Nobody Is Talking About
Yes, the rumour got debunked. Yes, Kohli handled it well. Yes, the page got embarrassed. Good.
But think about the people who saw that post at nine in the morning, shared it, argued about it in their family group chats, and then logged off before Kohli even responded. They never saw the correction. They are still carrying a version of this story that is completely made up. And nobody is going back to tell them.
That is how this stuff actually works. The lie gets a head start. The truth catches up eventually, but not to everyone.
And Kohli is in a better position than most because he has a platform big enough to fight back. He has been spending a lot of time in London over the past few years and that much is true. That one real detail was picked up and wrapped around a completely fabricated claim to make the whole thing sound believable. It is a simple trick. Take one true thing. Add several false things around it. Watch it spread.
Pages like @worldinlast24hrs do not care whether the story is accurate. They care whether it gets clicks. And a story about Virat Kohli asking for luxury travel during the IPL will always get clicks because it touches something people already have opinions about. His lifestyle, his priorities, how he has changed over the years. Real feelings, fake story.
Where Kohli Actually Is Right Now
Not at Heathrow. Not on a charter flight. At the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, doing what he has done every IPL season for the past eighteen years.
He joined the RCB camp ahead of their season opener against Sunrisers Hyderabad on March 28. He spoke to the team during training, reportedly asked everyone to give everything they had, and then got on with it.
This is the part people forget when they are busy reacting to fake news. The man they are discussing is not sitting somewhere making demands. He is at practice.
And the numbers he is chasing this season are genuinely remarkable. He is sitting at 8,661 IPL runs in 267 matches, with eight centuries and 63 fifties. Nobody has crossed 9,000 runs in IPL history. He is next in line to do it. Last season he put up 657 runs in 15 innings, averaging 54.75 with a strike rate of 144.71. Eight fifties. In a title-winning campaign.
This is a player at the back end of his career still performing at a level that would embarrass men ten years younger. The idea that he is distracted or disengaged is not just wrong. It is the opposite of what the evidence shows.
One More Thing Worth Saying
RCB are defending champions. Let that sink in for a second, because for the longest time that sentence seemed like it would never be written. After years of heartbreak and memes and jokes at the franchise’s expense, they actually won it. Now they have to do it again with everyone gunning for them.
That is the real story heading into March 28. Not a fake Instagram post. Not a rumour about flights. The real story is whether a team that finally broke through can back it up.
And the man at the centre of that team clearly has his head where it needs to be.
Two laughing emojis. Back to nets. That is Kohli in 2026.
Stay ahead with Hindustan Herald — bringing you trusted news, sharp analysis, and stories that matter across Politics, Business, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Lifestyle, and more.
Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, YouTube, and join our Telegram community @hindustanherald for real-time updates.
Sports reporter covering cricket, football, and Olympic disciplines, with on-ground event experience.
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
