HOT SEAT: Rajat Patidar is unanimous choice as RCB skipper for IPL 2025

Rajat Patidar being unveiled as skipper of Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Thursday is a good sign franchises in the Indian Premier League (IPL) are there to back home-grown talent and not depend on foreigners. At 31 years of age and a seasoned star for RCB, Rajat has been the quiet sort with the RCB. In terms of popularity of the franchise and a massive fan base, RCB evokes huge interest. For a side which is yet to win the IPL title even once, they connect with the masses in Bengaluru and virtually as well, globally.

For those who follow a thing or two about auction and strategies, when Rajat was retained at a price of Rs 11 crores, it suggested how much the team values him as a player and someone who can lead. On Thursday, RCB launched Rajat in lavish style, so typical of a side which had been projected first by business tycoon Vijay Mallya. There was a lot of gossip if Virat Kohi would return to lead RCB. That was a bit weird, as Kohli has been there and done that for India. And as the RCB think-tank explained on Thursday, there is no need to assign a leadership role to Virat Kohli since he always plays with enormous passion.

Rewind to what he does in Team India, still, and what he did for Delhi even during a brief Ranji Trophy appearance against Railways few weeks back in the Capital, Kohli will be proactive. The sick part is, some in the media and social media still think Kohli is hankering for a captaincy role. One must not forget, when Kohli was a sort of understudy to MS Dhoni, he had picked up a lot of captaincy skills/traits. Just as Dhoni sticks with the Chennai Super Kings team and has in Ruturaj Gaikwad a captain who is trusted, Rajat has been picked for Bengaluru.

It is not as if the decision to name Rajat Patidar as captain happened overnight. As a domestic player who has also played for India, he had been asked last year itself if he wanted to lead the franchise. Being sincere and honest, Rajat said he wanted to lead a state side first. The kind of performance which Madhya Pradesh put in this season in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy tournament and the Vijay Hazare Trophy tournament, it projected Rajat in good light. The good part, Rajat has not been gifted captaincy by RCB, they have weighed him, assessed him and then handed him the appointment letter.

The RCB side has a big bunch of guys who handle the back end, where Mo Bobat, RCB director of cricket, Andy Flower, Dinesh Karthik and of course, Virat Kohli have been talking to each other. The message put out by Kohli on Rajat’s appointment is a good one. He talks of how the whole team will back him and they look forward to the new season. As for Rajat, he has talked of himself as a captain who understands match situations well does not talk too much. If that be the case, he is not a loquacious leader like Rishabh Pant, who keeps chatting. The Rajat USP is being calm even in tough and tense situations.

As a batter, Rajat is solid, testimony being his runs and records in the white ball domestic format at home in the last few months. It is a big honour to lead a franchise as big as RCB. Expectations will be massive this time onwards. Now that Rajat has handled captaincy, he will be even more cool and backed by all the players in RCB so that the team can do well. Quite often, RCB have been blamed as under-performers in the IPL. When the captain chosen itself is a simply guy and has backing from the entire lot, led by Kohli, he will love leading RCB. It is a hot seat for sure, but sitting in it and piloting the side will be fun.