It is safe to say to many of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) fans were left surprised when they announced Rajat Patidar as the side's captain for IPL 2025. This was due to the fact that not only had the 32-year-old never led a team in the tournament before, but also because he had made his debut in the competition in 2021 and had only played 27 matches by that time.
Patidar proved everyone wrong
However, this decision would end up being a masterstroke for RCB as under Patidar's leadership, the franchise went on to lift the IPL title for the first time in their history. The batter was one of RCB's top performers during the campaign as not only was his captaincy commendable, but he also ended up impressing a lot with the bat and finished the season with 312 runs in 15 matches, including a strike-rate of 143.77.
Now, Bobat has revealed that while they did consider the options of bringing back Faf du Plessis or asking Virat Kohli to lead the team, they eventually ended up going for Patidar. He further revealed that the decision was taken after he himself had a few conversations with the 32-year-old during IPL 2024 regarding his aspirations to become the skipper.
“So we were thinking about an Indian captain. I also didn’t want to put ourselves in a position where we go into the auction fixed on a person to buy for captaincy. Because I think that’s quite dangerous because you can’t control what you get at an auction," Bobat said while speaking on Cricbuzz.
“The options we went into the auction with were that we could obviously buy back Faf if we wanted to have continuity. That was one option. Another option could be that we could go back to Virat," he added.
“I spoke to him when we were in Dharamsala. I think he was a little bit surprised because he thought we might just talk about his batting or something. I remember asking him whether he had any aspirations to captain or lead and he was probably a little bit surprised to hear the question, but he said, Yes, he does like the idea of leadership and captaincy," he further stated.
Meanwhile, it is likely that RCB will continue with Patidar as captain for IPL 2026 as well. He ended up showing incredible results in his very first campaign as the skipper so it will be quite surprising if the management decides to strip him off the role. It will be nothing short of a monumental feat if Patidar leads the Bengaluru-based franchise to their second consecutive IPL title next year.