 "Virat Kohli backs new RCB captain Rajat Patidar ahead of IPL 2025: 'He has everything that's required'")
Virat Kohli is confident new Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) captain Rajat Patidar will do a “great job” in the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) . Patidar has been named RCB’s captain for IPL 2025 after the franchise released Faf du Plessis.
“He [Patidar] is an amazing talent,” Kohli said at the RCB Unbox event. “He is a great player, we all know that, but he has got a great head on his shoulders, and he will do a great job for this amazing franchise and take the team forward. He has got everything that’s required.”
Kohli backs Patidar as RCB captain in IPL 2025
Patidar was also Madhya Pradesh’s captain in the 2024-25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy last year as he led the team to the final. In the tournament, the 31-year-old scored 428 runs in nine innings at a strike rate of 186.08.
While speaking about his captaincy, Patidar mentioned how RCB stars have inspired him over the years.
“Legends like Virat bhai, AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle have played for RCB. I grew up watching them. From the start, I have loved the franchise a lot. I am happy that I got a new role to lead one of the biggest teams in T20 cricket,” he said.
Earlier, RCB head coach Andy Flower had spoken about Patadiar’s qualities that make him a good fit as the team’s captain.
“The first one is there’s a calmness and a simplicity to Rajat that I think will stand him in really good stead as a leader and a captain, particularly in the IPL,” Flower had said. “The calm, simple demeanour that inherently lives within Rajat is going to serve him really well in the hurly-burly of that tournament,” Flower said in February.
“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 the respect and care from other people. As a leader, those qualities are important. In that people will follow you and get behind you.
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More Shorts“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 and I think that quality within him will be really important for him through the ups and downs.”
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