Bangalore has been well known in sport cutre since the post-independence period. Being a Premiere-hub for hockey in defending our country’s Olympic gold medal for 28 years or in being the home town of a set of players in India’s First World Cup winning team, Bangalore has a rich heritage in Sport’s History. The city has also been a prestigious Centre for nurturing several Talents in Sports, having National Cricket Academy or SPT Sports for football and hockey.
Bangalore has even participated in several sport tourneys and leagues and has made sure in performing well and bringing laurels to the city. Here, is a list of a few franchises from Bangalore in Popular Sport Leagues.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
Referred as the Pride of Bangalore, Royal Challengers Bangalore is a domestic cricket team which takes part in the Indian Premiere league. Vijay Mallya is the owner of the team. Having already been associated with other sports team, Vijay Mallya has always given Bangalore the gifts of buying several marquee players in each year’s auction.
Performing badly in their inaugural season, coming second to last in the table; the heart-throbs of Bangalore bounced back with a bang in the second season, finishing as the runners-up. The real treat came when RCB acquired Chris Gayle in the 4th season of the tournament. After his acquisition, he went on to belt his opponents by frequently hitting the ball for a six and scored centuries at ease.
The highlight of the team is the batting order that they showcase. Until this season, they had a demolishing group consisting Virat Kohli, Tilakratne Dilshan, Chris Gayle and AB De Villiers. However, this season Tilakratne Dilshan was let go but his spot has been ideally secured by Yuvraj Singh, the most expensive signing in IPL.
All in all, we hope that the Royal Challengers Bangalore end their trophy drought by winning the IPL trophy this season.
Bengaluru FC
Bengaluru FC or BFC despite being a new entry into this year’s Airtel I-League, has received a very warm and hearty welcome from its local fans. Succeeding HAL Bangalore in representing the city in the country’s premier football league, BFC has done far better job than its predecessor. Its owner being JSW steel which is headed Sajjan Jindal left no stone unturned to transform them into a creditable one.
Hiring a British coach who has previously coached League One sides, a former Premiere League player, a batch of a talented Indian players, a group of skill foreigners and the Indian National Team’s captain; Bengaluru FC started their debut participation in the I-League with style and has monopolized the Numero Uno position for 13 weeks continuous and became the first I League club to win the title in their in a debut season.
Bengaluru FC is that team which has given several Indian football fans a slight hope of having team that can display the credentials of those established by the European football teams. This team is also helping the grass root level of Indian football develop by having an Under 19 team and setting several coaching institutes.
If Bengaluru FC continues their journey with the same passion with what they started and with a vast amount of technical support, it won’t be very late for them to gift their local fans the trophies of Asian Champions League and the FIFA Club World Cup in the near future.
Karnataka Lions
Hockey is the national game of India. It is deservingly our national game because it retained an Olympic gold medal continuously for 28 years and has won a total of 8 gold medals in Olympics. Bangalore has also immensely contributed for the development of field hockey by contributing several talents to the national team and former captains like Jude Felix and Arjun Halappa.
In the World Series Hockey, the hockey tournament by the IHF the franchise of Bangalore is owned by Zentrum Group. Named as Karnataka Lions, the team fields a bunch of ex-Indian captains like Arjun Halappa, Dhanraj Pillai and Ignace Tirkey.
Under the guidance of Jude Felix and leadership of Arjun Halappa, this Bangalore team did a pretty impressing performance being third placed in the tournament, only losing to Sher-E-Punjab in the semifinals. This performance was achieved with sporty team play and the magnificence of Len Aiyappa who was the top scorer for this Bangalore franchise and was in overall the third top scorer in the tournament.
With a little more availability of such opportunities and encouragement, I possess a very optimistic thought that Indian hockey will regain their past glorious times which made them a super power in the game in the first place.
Bangalore Warhawks
It is a well-known fact that India has been on a gigantic leap towards westernization and to be precise, “Americanization”. So it would not be surprising for introduction of American football in the sport culture of India. For this reason the “Elite Football League of India” started.
Bangalore also has a franchise even in this tournament as the Bangalore Warhawks. Though this tournament is still in its initial stages, it’s been widely considered that along with the success of this tournament will be the establishment of a new sport in the Indian Mainland.