Earlier this month, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) announced that Rajat Patidar will be their captain for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. The batter had done exceedingly well for RCB since joining them in 2021. Once they didn’t retain Faf du Plessis before the IPL 2025 auction and couldn’t get anyone worthy in Jeddah, they decided to go with Patidar.
Why Rajat Patidar was made RCB captain for IPL 2025
The 31-year-old had taken his domestic team, Madhya Pradesh, to their second-ever Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) Final last year. He was also the best batter in the T20 tournament, which Mumbai ended up winning. This success was the exact reason why RCB management decided to make Patidar their 8th IPL captain.
Dinesh Karthik, RCB’s batting coach and mentor, has shared insight into what prompted the franchise to look at Patidar as the successor to Faf. There were talks of Virat Kohli taking a U-turn and returning as captain once again, but RCB decided to take a step in a different direction.
“The way he led Madhya Pradesh during the domestic season was fantastic. A lot of good things players had to say about the way he led the team. So that really encouraged us, and we wanted a new leader considering it’s a fresh group of players and it’s going to be a fresh cycle as well. These two things prompted us to make Rajat our captain,” Karthik said on HeyCB with DK show.
RCB squad for IPL 2025
Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar (c), Yash Dayal, Liam Livingstone 
, Phil Salt , Jitesh Sharma (wk), Josh Hazlewood , Rasikh Dar, Suyash Sharma, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Swapnil Singh, Tim David , Romario Shepherd , Nuwan Thushara , Manoj Bhandage, Jacob Bethell , Devdutt Padikkal, Swastik Chhikara, Lungi Ngidi , Abhinandan Singh, Mohit Rathee
