"Why not one more year" - Aakash Chopra on Virat Kohli captaining RCB again in IPL 2022
Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra feels that Virat Kohli is still one of the captaincy candidates for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for the upcoming IPL 2022. The three-time finalists will reveal their IPL captain and unveil their new jersey on March 12.
The 33-year-old stepped down from his role as RCB captain last year, citing workload management. Kohli proceeded to leave his leadership role across all formats from the Indian team as well in the space of five months. After being retained by RCB ahead of the IPL 2022 mega auction, Kohli will represent the franchise for a record 15th season.
Reasoning why RCB should approach Kohli to captain the IPL team once again, Chopra said on his YouTube channel:
"Why not Virat Kohli? When he left RCB's captaincy, he left India's T20 captaincy but was still the ODI and Test captain of India, but that did not happen. He was replaced by Rohit Sharma as the ODI captain and then stepped down as captain from Test cricket."
Chopra added:
"The situation is not same anymore. Virat Kohli and RCB is like CSK and MS Dhoni, so why not one more year. Their performances in the recent past have been good as well, they made it to the playoffs in the last 2 editions."
RCB have bowed out in the Eliminator stage of the IPL playoffs for two years in a row. The franchise were primed to finish in the top two during the previous season, but fell behind in the second leg in the UAE and were eventually eliminated by the in-form Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
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"There won't be too much workload on Kohli" - Aakash Chopra
Having quit the captaincy across all fronts, Chopra feels RCB could convince Kohli to return as the team's captain. Apart from Kohli, the former India opener named Glenn Maxwell, Dinesh Karthik and Faf du Plessis as potential choices for the vacant role. Chopra said:
"Faf du Plessis, Dinesh Karthik, Glenn Maxwell, or maybe even Virat Kohli. They can request him to captain once again because he is not captaining anywhere else. There won't be too much workload. So, who will be RCB's captain, that's the million-dollar question."
RCB will open their season with a clash against Punjab Kings as per the recently released IPL 2022 schedule. The newly-appointed captain will be tasked with leading the team out in the quest for a maiden title.