3 players besides Virat Kohli who RCB can consider as captain for IPL 2025 ft. Bhuvneshwar Kumar
The Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) went to the IPL 2025 auction having released their captain Faf du Plessis and didn't even try hard to sign a replacement. The talk of the cricket reporting town is that there's a chance Virat Kohli could be eyeing a return to the helm after three years.
Kohli coming back for a last sprint with his favorite team sounds dreamy for fans. It might be good, too, for he has now spent enough time away from leadership roles to perhaps develop further, even at his age, and would be getting a better team.
However, RCB will also risk turning the clock back in the wrong direction with this decision. The team under du Plessis looked unburdened from all the highs and lows of the Kohli captaincy era and even the Indian legend seemed to be batting more freely.
If the decision isn't final yet, there should be some room for discussion about someone else apart from Kohli taking over. Their new squad is excellent and Andy Flower and Mo Bobat can help a younger skipper to get going through their vision.
Below, we analyse three options other than Kohli that RCB can consider for captaincy:
#3 Rajat Patidar
Rajat Patidar is RCB's most important player after Kohli and should be seen as a captaincy candidate. A crucial middle-order batter, he is 31 and set for his prime batting years, which should make leading an overhauled team an easier task.
He's currently captaining Madhya Pradesh in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and has seen three wins in as many games. In two of those games, he scored brilliant match-winning half-centuries, which suggests he might love the extra responsibility.
As someone who has worked his way into the RCB 11 and was not signed in this year's auction, Patidar shouldn't have any issues in getting the fans' support. He also knows the set-up better than most and would probably share a good bond with Flower and Bobat, under who he has played his best cricket.
Giving the reins to someone who embodies the hard-hitting agressive style that RCB flexed in the second half of the last season could be key to unlocking the franchise's full potential.
#2 Krunal Pandya
Like the other two, this might sound like a surprising left-field choice, and that's because it is. However, Krunal is one of the better captains available in the RCB set-up and he'd also be a sure-shot starter.
He has a ton of experience in leading Baroda, a team which is regularly punching above its weight, in domestic cricket and knows how to lead a T20 team. Currently, they are top of the table after winning all four of their games in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.
Krunal's personality, like his brother Hardik, is aggressive, to-the-face type but he can be quite tactically brilliant too. And there's a reason why Baroda have stuck with Krunal as captain despite Hardik playing in the team as well.
RCB have signed the left-arm spinner for his primary skill -- he has an economy rate of under 7 at Chinnaswamy and would be perfect to lead the spin department. So, he'll play most games and his likely good performances would only inspire the team.
There are some issues -- he has been involved in controversies with some Baroda players like Deepak Hooda and Swapnil Singh (who's also in RCB) -- but in an environment where Flower and Bobat are the decision-makers, those should be ironed out.
#1 Bhuvneshwar Kumar
What Krunal would be for the spin department, Bhuvneshwar Kumar would be for the pacers. A bonafide leader of pacers, Bhuvneshwar has a lot going in his way to be seen as the team skipper too.
He has led T20 teams in local leagues in Uttar Pradesh and also captained SRH in eight matches, mostly through tumultuous phases. He's currently captaining Uttar Pradesh in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the team has won two of their first three games.
For RCB, he'd mostly bowl two overs in powerplay and two at the death and the responsibility would be comparable to a top-order batter. For the management, he could be the perfect general on the field, someone open to listening ideas who could also communicate them to teammates who'd respect him.