Rajat Patidar Pips Virat Kohli To Become New RCB Captain For IPL 2025

Rajat Patidar has been announced as the new captain of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) franchise ahead of the IPL 2025. There were speculations that Virat Kohli would take over the reins once more for RCB, but the management has decided on a new face to take them into the future.

Rajat Patidar was a contender for the RCB captaincy, alongside Virat Kohli, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Phil Salt. However, team management has decided to put faith in Patidar following his great accomplishments for the organization over the years.

RCB announce their new captain

RCB made the news on Thursday in Bengaluru, in front of team director Mo Bobat, head coach Andy Flower, and Patidar. He is RCB's seventh captain, having spent three seasons with the organization since arriving in 2021, and has become one of their major batters, scoring 799 runs in 28 matches with a strike rate of 158.85.

The 31-year-old is known to be a brilliant player of spin bowling and is credited for the game against the slow bowlers in the middle overs. He can hit big sixes off the spinners despite being shorter in height.

I got a hint that I could get captaincy: Rajat Patidar

After releasing Faf du Plessis, who had captained the side in previous seasons, the Bengaluru franchise was without a captaincy contender for the 2025 season. Patidar, who led Madhya Pradesh to the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final earlier this season, was chosen.

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."

A new chapter begins for RCB and we couldn’t be more excited for Ra-Pa! 🤩

From being scouted for two to three years before he first made it to RCB in 2021, to coming back as injury replacement in 2022, missing out in 2023 due to injury, bouncing back and leading our middle… pic.twitter.com/gStbPR2fwc

— Royal Challengers Bengaluru (@RCBTweets) February 13, 2025

IPL 2022 was his best in terms of individual performances. He struck 333 runs in 8 matches at an average of 55.50 and a brilliant strike rate of 152.75. He even scored a blistering century that year.

RCB yet to win an IPL trophy

Patidar's appointment represents a new path for the Royal Challengers, who have previously been led by Virat Kohli and du Plessis. Kohli initially led the squad in May 2011, taking over for Daniel Vettori, who was unavailable for three matches. He took up full-time captaincy of the team in 2012 and will lead it until the 2021 season.

Under Kohli's captaincy, RCB made the playoffs in 2015 and were runners-up the following year, during which the star batter scored a record 973 runs. They also advanced to the playoff stage in 2020 and 2021. The Royal Challengers also made the playoffs in two seasons in the 2022-24 cycle, when du Plessis was captain of the team after Kohli stepped down.

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