Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) will pay tribute to frontline workers amid the Covid-19 pandemic by featuring a message for them in their jersey for the 2020 Indian Premier League (IPL) season.

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have decided to pay special tributes to the COVID warriors during the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

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The RCB players will wear a special message saying “My Covid Heroes” in both their training and match jerseys throughout the IPL 2020, informed the franchise on Thursday.

“To acknowledge the efforts and honour the sacrifices made by these real challengers, RCB team will proudly don a tribute jersey with the message ‘My Covid Heroes’ both during training and matches for the entire tournament,” said RCB in a statement on Thursday.

The franchise also said that players will pay pay tribute to “all COVID heroes and sharing some of their inspirational stories on the team’s social media handles”.

“I am truly proud to wear RCB’s ‘My Covid Heroes’ jersey as a sign of solidarity and gratitude to everyone who is right now going the extra mile to support the community at large,” said captain Virat Kohli. “They have batted day and night and fought on the field, and I am honoured to call them my heroes.”

“We all have become more accepting of the situation around us. That would not have been the case when you have so many options of like I can go out for a coffee…do whatever I want at any time of the day. Acceptance is the biggest change that I have experienced,” Kohli said.

The 2020 season of the IPL will be played for 53 days from September 19 to November 10 across three venues in the UAE — Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Dubai.

The final match will be played on a Tuesday, to make it the first-ever IPL to have its final on a weekday. The matches this season will also start 30 minutes before their original time of 4 PM and 8 PM.

The IPL 2020, which was scheduled to be played from March 29 this year, was earlier postponed to April 15 before it was suspended again due to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, after the International Cricket Council (ICC) formally announced the postponement of the T20 World Cup, the BCCI capitalised on the opportunity to stage the IPL during the time the T20 World Cup was dated to take place.

But with the coronavirus situation escalating in India with each passing day, the Indian board decided to move the tournament out of the country. It is believed, UAE was chosen keeping in mind their prior experience of hosting a limited part of the tournament in 2014.