As per reports, a few sections of fans are not happy with the franchise for calling the side as 'Bangalore' - which is now the old name of the Garden City. The franchise has hinted towards the same after removing the word 'Bangalore' from its Twitter and Instagram handle and it now only read 'Royal Challengers'. The franchise has also removed the team logos across its social media handles, including Facebook.

As per reports doing the rounds on the internet, the official announcement about the same is going to be made on February 16 and the term 'Bengaluru' will be added to the name.

BCCI likely to reschedule start date of IPL 2020: Reports

"Due to the agitation from local fans, RCB officials have decided to rename home team name from Bangalore to 'Bengaluru'. Change of logo also expected. It's all happening on February 16," claim reports.

Even RCB captain Virat Kohli and his teammates AB de Villiers and Yuzvendra Chahal expressed their shock after the Twitter handle's profile picture went blank.

Posts disappear and the captain isn’t informed. 😨 @rcbtweets, let me know if you need any help. — Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) February 13, 2020

Folks at @rcbtweets, what’s happened to our social media accounts? 😳 Hope it’s just a strategy break. 🤞🏼 — AB de Villiers (@ABdeVilliers17) February 12, 2020

Arey @rcbtweets, what googly is this? 🤔 Where did your profile pic and Instagram posts go? 😳 — Yuzvendra Chahal (@yuzi_chahal) February 12, 2020

The city was originally called 'Bengaluru' till the third Anglo Mysore war of 1792. Once the British took over the reins of the city after winning the war, the British found it hard to pronounce and renamed it to Bangalore. In 2014, however, the Government of India decided to rename the city back to its old name of "Bengaluru".

The speculations of the franchise getting re-christened became rife after the Royal Challengers recently announced a three-year partnership with Muthoot Fincorp Ltd. Muthoot Fincorp Ltd. is a part of the Muthoot Pappachan Group, popularly known as Muthoot Blue, a diversified conglomerate in the financial services industry. Muthoot Fincorp is one amongst the largest Gold Loan companies in India.

The partnership of title sponsor for the marquee T20 team includes the heavily valued "jersey-front" logo placement, which will be prominent on the playing and training jersey, in-stadium integration at home matches, digital and other highly visible media platforms.

Royal Challengers Bangalore Chairman, Sanjeev Churiwala said, "We, at Royal Challengers Bangalore are pleased to be associating with Muthoot Fincorp Ltd, Muthoot Blue, as our title sponsor, as they bring passion and core values that we as a brand believe in. We are positive that both Royal Challengers and Muthoot Fincorp Ltd , Muthoot Blue, will be able to channelize this collaboration in a brilliant way."

The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) is owned by Royal Challengers Sports Private Limited, a subsidiary of Diageo India. One of the original eight teams of the IPL, RCB has made three final appearances in the domestic T20 league (in 2009 to the Deccan Chargers, in 2011 to the Chennai Super Kings and in 2016 to the Sunrisers Hyderabad) for which they finished runners-up in all.

It is one of the more consistent and successful T20 sides and has tremendous Indian and international star power led by Indian cricket team's skipper and national icon Virat Kohli. For the upcoming season of the IPL, the franchise features international superstars including Captain Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers, Yuzvendra Chahal, Aaron Finch, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, among others, forming the core of an exciting team.