Founder and former chairman of the Indian Premier League, Lalit Modi made a young fan’s day by gifting a signed bat recently. All thanks to the power of social media, the young fan named Yugveer Budhiraja went from enduring a heartbreak to having his dream come true.
It all started when a passionate cricket fan, later identified as Yugveer Budhiraja desperately trying to get an autograph from Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s star batter Virat Kohli. Despite the boy’s best efforts, the strict security personnel turned him away. This moment was caught on a video and later went viral all over social media.
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As a result, Yugveer walked off with tearful eyes and threw his bat on the floor in frustration, something that caught the eye of fans across India. Among those who were moved by the clip and the boy’s sadness was Lalit Modi.
The former IPL chairman, in a recent interview with the Humans of Bombay podcast, admitted that he was left heartbroken when he saw the clip of Yugveer getting turned down by the security staff. Lalit Modi then asked his media team to find the young fan in order to gift him something incredibly rare.
And that is a bat from the 2011 Cricket World Cup edition in India which was signed by every single player during the tournament including Virat Kohli himself. Modi even admitted that he doesn’t have an individual Kohli-signed bat in his own collection.
The search eventually proved successful through the podcast with Lalit Modi taking on X to give a delightful update.
Thru @Karishma_Mehta5 podcast a few days ago – where I expressed how I felt sad about the young boy who was pushed aside by security of @imVkohli – when he tried to get his Autograph. The child
Was heart broken. Ipl is all about creating a fan base and loyalty of fans is… pic.twitter.com/UxfhAGqdD8— Lalit Kumar Modi (@LalitKModi) June 3, 2026
“The young Child Yagu saw it and reached out to me on social media on my instagram. I immediately called him in the middle of the night half asleep – and did a video call with him and his father. And we spoke. And it made my day. Today he sent me this video. I am sending the bat from my private collection which was on my wall to him.” – Lalit Modin wrote on X.
Yugveer then took to Instagram to share that he had received a surprise morning video call from Modi. The young Delhi boy thanked the veteran cricket administrator for making his day so incredibly special. This news has gone viral ever since, depicting the power social media carries nowadays.
Lalit Modi also had a message for Virat Kohli, asking the 2-time IPL champion to send him a signed bat for his own collection as he doesn’t have the latter’s memorabilia.
