IPL 2026: Mo Bobat Opines on Picking Rajat Patidar as RCB Captain.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Director of Cricket Mo Bobat revealed that while they had the option of buying back Faf du Plessis and reinstating him as captain, or asking Virat Kohli to lead the team, the team management clearly wanted an Indian skipper and they turned to Rajat Patidar, which turned out to be a masterstroke.

Rajat Patidar was with the RCB team from his debut Indian Premier League season in 2021 and enjoyed his best run with the bat last year. Patidar scored 395 runs at an average of 30.38 at a strike rate of 177.13 in 15 matches in 2024 IPL.

Mo Bobat Gives his views on selecting Rajat Patidar as captain. 

While speaking to Cricbuzz, Mo Bobat said: “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.”

Mo Bobat further added: “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.” 

Rajat Patidar didn’t enjoy the best season with the bat in IPL 2025 as he finished with 312 runs at an average of 24 and a strike rate of 143.77 in 15 matches that he played.

Mo Bobat Revealed About Conversations with Patidar in IPL 2024 regarding leadership. 

Mo Bobat further revealed his conversations with Patidar during IPL 2024 about his leadership aspirations. He said: “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.” 

Mo Bobat further added: “We talked about whether he’d had any experience of it. I did say: ‘Look, for you to even be an option or even to be one of our senior leader four players, it’d be good if you did some captaincy.” 

The move by the RCB management turned out to be a masterstroke as Rajat Patidar despite having an average season with the bat led the team well and took them to their first IPL title. The games that he missed due to injury and it was only a game or two, it reflected on RCB’s performance as they lost those games. But Patidar was in total control of the proceedings when he went to lead the team.

Yes, there is no doubt he got help from Virat Kohli with Kohli being the senior member of the squad as the guidance helped him grow, but he was a man of his own and a mind of his own. Defeating Punjab Kings whose captain was Shreyas Iyer three times out of four times including the final is no joke and Rajat needs to be commended for his efforts.

The RCB management had to think and take the call as Faf was also a great leader for them especially 2024 season where they came back from nowhere to reach playoffs. But Faf being a foreigner and also ageing with niggles in the body meant RCB had to look elsewhere. While they did think about Virat Kohli, but they also had a vision of looking at the future. That vision was to have a young captain who has done that in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy as well. Plus, Virat was onboard and agreed with the decision.

It turned out to be the best call as Rajat successfully led RCB to their maiden IPL title and it remains to be seen whether he can lead them to back-to-back titles when IPL 2026 comes along as if he does that he will join an elite list of captains to do that. We shall wait and see how IPL 2026 shapes up when it happens.

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