Rajat Patidar Appointed as RCB Captain for IPL 2025

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Rajat Patidar appointed RCB captain for IPL 2025, marking a fresh chapter after the team parted ways with Faf du Plessis.

• Patidar's leadership journey began with his success in leading Madhya Pradesh to the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final, making him RCB's eighth captain.

• Patidar’s IPL stats: 799 runs from 27 matches at a strike rate of 158.85, with retention valued at INR 11 Crore.

• Head coach Andy Flower praises Patidar’s qualities, highlighting his calm demeanor, care for teammates, and strength in tough moments.

Rajat Patidar, the 31-year-old middle-order batter, has been named the captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) season. The franchise made the announcement at an event held at the KSCA on Thursday (February 13).

After parting ways with Faf du Plessis, who had captained the team in previous seasons, the Bengaluru franchise was without a captaincy candidate for the 2025 season. Patidar, who led Madhya Pradesh to the final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy earlier this season, will become the eighth player to captain RCB.

Speaking about his captaincy, and recollecting when the leadership conversations started, Patidar said: "Last year, I think it was Mo [Bobat, RCB director of cricket] who I spoke to about this. Mo asked me, are you interested in doing captaincy? So I told him, before doing captaincy for RCB, I'd like to have captaincy of the state team. So from there, I got a hint that I could get captaincy. So along with that, I was a little happy that from where I started my IPL career, and now that I look at it, I can feel that journey quite well."

Patidar made his IPL debut in 2021 and has been with the franchise ever since. Known for his ability to dominate both pace and spin, he has played 27 matches for RCB, amassing 799 runs at a strike rate of 158.85. Ahead of the mega auction, he was one of the three players retained by RCB, alongside Virat Kohli and Yash Dayal, with his retention valued at INR 11 Crore.

Patidar was released from the squad ahead of the 2022 season and went unsold at the auctions. However, following an injury to Luvinth Sisodia during the season, Patidar was brought in as a replacement player for RCB. He seized the opportunity, scoring 333 runs in 8 innings, including a century, and quickly became a key member of the team.

Patidar’s appointment marks a new chapter for Royal Challengers, who have previously been led by Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis. Kohli first captained the team in May 2011, stepping in for Daniel Vettori for three matches. He took over the full-time captaincy in 2012 and continued to lead the team until the 2021 season.

Under Kohli's leadership, RCB reached the playoffs in 2015 and finished as runners-up the following year, with Kohli scoring a record 973 runs during that season. The team also made it to the playoffs in 2020 and 2021. After Kohli stepped down, Faf du Plessis took over as captain, guiding the team to the playoffs in two seasons from 2022-2024. In 2023, however, Kohli briefly captained the side in three matches while du Plessis was recovering from a rib injury, with du Plessis playing only as an Impact Player.

"I could speak for quite a long time about Rajat, but I've settled on three main things that I thought might be interesting to share," said head coach Andy Flower. "The first one is, there's a calmness and a simplicity to Rajat that I think will stand in really good stead as a leader and a captain, particularly in the IPL. As we know, the IPL is one of the premier competitions in the world, and there's pressures involved in that. And I think the calm, simple demeanour that inherently lives within Rajat is going to serve him really well in the early, early of that tournament.

"And his decision-making will be tested, like all of ours is, but I think these qualities will stand him in really good stead. We watched Rajat very closely as he captained Madhya Pradesh in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament, and we really liked what we saw around those qualities. The second thing I'd say about him, he's inherently quite a quiet guy, but observing him, he cares about the people around him.

"He cares about the people that he plays with, that he shares a dressing room with. And I think that's a quality that means that he will instantly have respect and care from other people, and that, as a leader, those qualities are important in that people will follow you and get behind you. And then the third thing that stands out for me about him is that he's got a stubbornness and a strength and a steeliness about him.

"I've seen it myself when I'm trying to coach him in the nets and he won't listen to me. But you see it in the way that he plays. You see the bravery with which he takes on the game," added Flower. "And I think that quality within him will be really important for him through the ups and downs, the inevitable ups and downs that come along with playing in the IPL and now stepping up another year into leading a big franchise in the IPL. So I think those qualities are going to stand Rajat in good stead. We recognise them."