Bollywood actress and wife of Virat Kohli, Anushka Sharma, was present as Royal Challengers Bengaluru reached the IPL 2025 final with a victory over Punjab Kings on Thursday. Bollywood actress and wife of Virat Kohli, Anushka Sharma, was present as Royal Challengers Bengaluru reached the IPL 2025 final with a victory over Punjab Kings on Thursday.
But it was her friend who got a lot of fans interested and even left the social media buzzing. The woman was sitting next to Anushka during the match, and they both celebrated at the end of the match.
The said woman is Malvika Nayak, who is Anushka’s longtime friend. This was not the first occasion when Malvika watched a game with her as she was present during the Lucknow Super Giants match.
Arriving for the match, A fantastic bowling display spearheaded by three-fers for Suyash Sharma and Josh Hazlewood propelled Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) to their fourth IPL final in history, defeating Punjab Kings by eight wickets in an one-sided Qualifier 1 game in the 2025 season at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium on Thursday.
On a surface that had sufficient stitching and additional bounce, all went the way of RCB, starting with the toss, as leg-spinner Suyash and a come-backing Hazlewood shared 3-17 and 3-21 respectively to tear the PBKS’ power-laden batting line-up asunder and reduce them to 101 in 14.1 overs.
The pair were ably aided by Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yash Dayal, and Romario Shepherd, claiming four wickets between them to lay the foundation for an emphatic RCB victory.
During the pursuit, opener Phil Salt hit a 23-ball half-century, his quickest IPL half-century, and blazed with some gorgeous stroke-play to remain unbeaten on 56 off 27 as RCB chased down the target with 10 overs remaining.
Though RCB will now feature in their fourth IPL final on June 3 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, PBKS have a second opportunity to reach the final as they take on the Eliminator winner in Qualifier 2 at the same stadium on Sunday.
