Can CSK Fans Stomach an RCB IPL Title Win?

Sporting rivalries have become a strange beast for the fan in this era of all-pervasive social media. Largely gone are the days of fan warzones outside stadiums; they have been replaced by online trolling, which is no less toxic. And as new-age fans live and die by the success and failure of their team, the thought of the bitterest rival winning leaves them with a sense of bitterness that eats them from within.

That probably makes a Brazil fan in any corner of the world disturbed by Argentina’s ‘world champion’ tag, even if there’s an admiration for Leo Messi. Or closer home, imagine a Pakistan cricket fan talking about Asian pride as India go on to win an ICC event! Unimaginable? Right.

It’s the same for club sport as well — for a Real Madrid or a Liverpool supporter, Barcelona or Manchester United winning the Champions League is as painful as the defeat of their own team. And make no mistake, the dislike is mutual from the other end.

That’s exactly the space where Chennai Super Kings fans find themselves these days as Royal Challengers Bengaluru close in on their second Indian Premier League title on the bounce. It’s still four days to go for the final, and they will have to deal with the agony of knowing that the once-poor cousins are the real big boys of Indian T20 cricket.
For years, CSK had dominated this ‘southern derby’ — the head-to-head is 21-14 in favour of the five-time champions. There was a period of 17 years between 2008 and 2025 when RCB hadn’t won in Chennai, making the CSK fan slightly over-confident, bordering on cocky. They didn’t mind Virat Kohli doing well, knowing that the dice would finally roll in their favour.

But all that has turned in the last three years. In 2024, CSK failed to make the play-offs, losing to RCB in their last league match. A year later, they lost both their matches to their ‘neighbours’, and this year too things didn’t go well for CSK as they lost to RCB in Bengaluru.

It did get bitter between the two sets of fans this year after RCB played a track, ‘Dosa, idli, sambhar, chutney’ before the CSK innings. It ceased to be friendly banter, and the CSK management felt Tamil stereotypes were being used to insult the team that represents the heart and soul of Tamil Nadu.

“RCB also come and play at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. We have never done anything that ridicules the people of Karnataka,” said a CSK official after a complaint was lodged with the BCCI. It was also reported that CSK fans, including women, felt “insecure” about leaving the Chinnaswamy Stadium — the home of RCB — because of the kind of booing they faced.

RCB fans, of course, countered, saying they had faced similar barracking over the years and that now the shoe is on the other foot. Social media memes came out time and again, poking fun at CSK defeats, leaving the proud fan base fuming.

There is a bit of historical context to this bitterness as well. The Cauvery water dispute has had its role to play, even though the tension isn’t at its worst now. The fact that these cities — Chennai and Bengaluru — are the two most important in south India adds to this game of one-upmanship. While the erstwhile Madras presidency got its name from the city itself, Bengaluru has become the IT hub and is probably the first choice for a pan-Indian audience. Chennai, on the other hand, boasts of its cultural heritage and for the ‘old Madras man’, it’s still the No. 1 city of south India.

On the cricket field, the Tamil Nadu vs Karnataka contest has always been one of the spiciest games in the Ranji Trophy, though Karnataka has won more titles and produced more stars. “They had their Prasanna and Chandrashekhar once upon a time; we also had our Ashwin. Our man has 537 Test wickets, do we need to say more, with due respect to others?” Sriram, a Chennai-based IT professional and avid cricket fan, immediately hits back.

And when it comes to IPL, it has always been Kohli vs Dhoni — the fire vs ice debate. Both were brilliant in India colours, but come IPL, Dhoni’s stupendous success as captain stood out. But Kohli kept on performing, being the highest scorer in IPL history. And once RCB’s title drought was over in 2025, they were truly equals. It’s this compulsion of treating RCB as an equal that bothers the CSK fan, who is used to brushing the rivals off as also-ran for a long time. Albeit disturbed, they will probably still switch on their TVs on Sunday, hoping to see the rivals lose. “My problem with RCB fans is that they refuse to stay humble after victories. But I will still feel happy for the RCB players if they go on to win it, because they deserve it,” says Trinay, an 18-year-old CSK loyalist, trying to lend a balanced perspective to this ongoing bickering.

And let’s not forget, the champions that CSK are, they, too, may have their day sooner rather than later.

BITTER FAN RIVALRIES ACROSS THE WORLD
Boca Juniors vs River Plate (Argentine club football) | The rivalry divides Buenos Aires, the city that produced Diego Maradona. The ‘Superclasico’ is an extremely hostile sporting event, with Maradona’s club Boca representing the working class while River Plate is the favourite of the well-off sections of the city

LA Lakers vs Boston Celtics (NBA) | The two powerhouses have faced each other a record 12 times in NBA finals — their rivalry being characterized by the Larry Bird vs Magic Johnson face-off of the 1980s, which is often compared to the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry of the 2010s

Real Madrid vs Barcelona (La Liga) | Not for nothing, it’s called the Clásico. The football world gets divided when these two teams meet, and it has a lot to do with the historical, cultural and political clashes between Catalonia, a region fighting for autonomy and Spain’s centralized power, once represented by General Franco

Mohun Bagan vs East Bengal (Kolkata football) | While Bagan represent the old ‘babu’ culture of Kolkata, East Bengal is the sporting umbrella that brought together refugees who began arriving in the city after Partition in 1947. The cultural divide has slowly dissolved over the years, but the ferocity of the rivalry hasn’t come down — Indian football is witnessing its worst day when 16 people died in 1980 during derby day violence