Virat Kohli Dismisses Rumors of Charter Flight Demands for IPL 2026

Kohli Responds to False Claims

New Delhi: Renowned Indian cricketer Virat Kohli has dismissed recent 'fake news' alleging that he requested a chartered flight for his travel from India to London, as well as plans to return home during the IPL 2026 matches.

An Instagram account named 'worldinlast24hrs' claimed that Kohli had asked the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) management for chartered flight arrangements, stating he wanted to travel to the UK whenever there was a gap of more than three days between matches and return just before the next game.

Kohli quickly refuted these claims by sharing a screenshot of the now-deleted post on his Instagram story, accompanied by several 'laughing out loud' emojis.

Following Kohli's response, the Instagram account stated that their profile had been hacked, claiming, "Our account crashed after Virat Kohli's story," along with a screenshot of their analytics.

Earlier, during the team's first training session, Kohli motivated a small group of Indian players, urging them to give their best in the upcoming weeks. He remarked, "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."

Head coach Andy Flower had previously welcomed new players to the squad before Kohli delivered his motivational speech during the initial training session.

The former captain, who is among the top scorers in IPL history, stressed the importance of urgency from the outset, stating, "We don’t waste these days. We stay ahead. So, switch on now. Let’s not waste even a minute of any session that we are a part of. We must give our 120 percent for these two and a half months."