At the IPL 2025 Auction in Jeddah, Royal Challengers Bengaluru purchased 19 players, and their approach appeared to be rather clear. The team made wise offers over the two-day event and did not appear eager for a captaincy option. Josh Hazlewood was the most costly player the team had ever purchased, costing Rs 12.50 crore. It was therefore not surprising that their bids for KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant, two of the team's top captains, failed to surpass Rs 10.50 crore and Rs 11 crore, respectively.
There were also reports about Virat Kohli becoming captain again but nothing official came from RCB. The composition of the 22-men roster, which consists of 19 buys and three retentions, also hints in the direction of Virat Kohli's expected return as RCB captain in the 2025 season. Although they targeted Rahul and Pant, the bidding pattern was not urgent. Bids for the two players appeared to be intended to create the core rather than to provide leadership. They did not even consider Shreyas Iyer, who ultimately signed a contract for Rs 26.75 crore with Punjab Kings.
Mo Babat on RCB captaincy
Earlier this month, RCB's director of cricket Mo Bobat also said that no decision has been made about the captaincy for the franchise in the upcoming season.
"I am sorry to disappoint everybody listening. We have not made any decision related to captaincy or on that (Kohli returning as skipper) as yet. We are open to options. The only obvious decision we made was not to retain Faf. He did a great job last year and the year before that. So from our perspective, we will keep a very open mind when we head to the auction," said Bobat in a video posted by RCB.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru squad
Virat Kohli (21 crores), Yash Dayal (5 crores), Rajat Patidar (11 crores), Liam Livingstone (8.75 crores), Phil Salt (11.50 crore) Jitesh Sharma (INR 11 crore), Josh Hazlewood (12.50 crore), Rasikh Dar (6 crores), Suyash Sharma (2.60 crores), Krunal Pandya (5.75 crore), Bhuvneshwar Kumar (10.75 crore), Tim David (3 crores), Swapnil Singh (50 Lakh), Romario Shepherd (1.50 crore), Nuwan Thushara (1.60 crore), Manoj Bhandage (30 Lakh), Jacob Bethell (2.60 crore), Devdutt Padikkal (2 crore), Swastik Chikara (30 Lakh), Lungi Ngidi (1 crore), Abhinandan Singh (30 Lakh), Mohit Rathee (30 Lakh)
If you see the current RCB squad for the 2025 IPL edition, there are not many players that you can pick for the captaincy role. Apart from Virat, the only names that one can think of are Jitesh Sharma, Rajat Patidar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Krunal Pandya, and Liam Livingstone.
However, none of them has that impressive of a resume for captaincy. On the other, Virat's stature speaks on its own. He was RCB's captain from 2013 to 20212 and even led his side to the playoffs four times and in the year 2016, they came the closes to win the title but eventually lost to SRH in the finals. After Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis led the side for three seasons and led them to the playoffs twice but the franchise neither retained him nor bid for him in the auction indicating their solid decision to part ways with him
