Rajat Patidar, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru batter, had stopped using his old mobile number. After 90 days of inactivity, his telecom company deactivated it and issued it to a new customer — Manish, a teenager from Gariaband, Chhattisgarh.
When Manish activated the SIM, he noticed something unusual — the WhatsApp profile picture still showed Patidar. That was just the beginning.
Soon after getting the number, Manish began receiving calls and messages meant for Patidar. To his shock, two of those calls came from Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers. The cricket legends, thinking they were contacting their RCB teammate, were actually speaking to a confused teenager hundreds of kilometers away.
Manish’s friend Khemraj, who was with him at the time, couldn’t believe it. For die-hard cricket fans, hearing from Kohli and AB de Villiers is a once-in-a-lifetime moment — and here it was happening by accident.
Realizing that someone else now had his old number — and was receiving his cricket-related calls — Patidar tried to reach out directly. When he spoke to Manish and Khemraj, he politely explained that the number was his old one and requested them to return the SIM.
But the teens weren’t convinced it was really Patidar. In fact, they laughed it off, joking, “And we’re MS Dhoni.”
What started as lighthearted banter quickly took a serious turn when Patidar warned, “Okay, I’ll send the cops.” Within just 10 minutes, local police officers arrived at the boys’ home.
The teens were shocked, realizing that this wasn’t a prank after all. Faced with police presence, they handed over the SIM without any further argument
While the incident ended with a police visit, it left the teens with a story they’ll never forget. As Khemraj put it:
“I got to speak to Virat Kohli because of a wrong number. My life’s goal is complete.”
magine sitting at home and suddenly getting a call from Virat Kohli. Sounds like a dream, right? For two friends from Chhattisgarh, that dream came true — but in the strangest way possible — all thanks to cricketer Rajat Patidar’s old phone number.
