South Africa's AB De Villiers handed jersey No.100 by Bengaluru FC prior to his 100th test match
This year's Diwali festival celebration is underway and Bengaluru FC have honoured South Africa’s AB De Villiers with their official team shirt, the club's official Twitter page announced. De Villiers is playing his hundredth test match in Bengaluru on Saturday and to mark his achievement the I-League team has handed the South African with the number ‘100’ shirt.
Diwali celebrations don't seem right if there are no crackers involved and BFC have made a cracker of a signing in De Villiers who is the club's newest friend. As we all know, Mr.360 is a popular figure in and around Bangalore, after all, he plays for the city’s IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore.
The 31-year-old is the darling of the Chinnaswamy stadium and he is set to play his 100th test match at Bangalore on Saturday against India. This is a remarkable achievement for the South African batsman and BFC’s club COO Mustafa Ghouse honoured him this morning with a team jersey. De Villiers also promptly wore the Blues' scarf and promised to use his 'life member' card to cheer the Blues from the Fortress the next time he was in the city.
South Africa will be hoping that Mr.360 turns on the heat against India and secure a win to level the series in the second test encounter. Last week, De Villiers and his teammates suffered a 108 run defeat on the third day of the first test with 19 of the 20 wickets falling to spinners. The 31-year-old failed to turn his team’s fortunes around in the first test match as wickets kept falling at the other end in quick sessions.
Meanwhile, the Blues will be looking to bounce back from their disappointment in the I-League's 2014/15 campaign when they dramatically lost the race to Kolkata's Mohun Bagan to claim the league title. Both teams went head-to-head on the final day at the Kanteerva Stadium, where a win could have crowned the Blues champions for the second successive season.
But the game ended in a 1-1 draw and Mohun Bagan secured their first I-League title with 39 points at the top of the table while Ashley Westwood's team bagged a total of 37 points.