Rise and rise of RCB captain Rajat Patidar
AHMEDABAD: As Rajat Patidar got down on one knee and smashed Musheer Khan into the New PCA Stadium stands, leading Royal Challengers Bengaluru into the 2025 IPL final, he had become a part of an elite club of captains to achieve the feat. Patidar joined Anil Kumble, Daniel Vettori and Virat Kohli — they are the ones to have led RCB to previous IPL finals — in taking the franchise with a massive fan base to their fourth summit clash in 18 years.
At this point, it is well established that RCB Director Mo Bobat asked Patidar whether he would be interested in taking the leadership role and from coming back into the team as an injury replacement in 2022 to leading the franchise to the 2025 IPL final, he has had a meteoric rise. And so is the fact that he was all set to get married during the IPL season before being called in as an injury replacement for Luvnith Sisodia.
However, it wasn't the first time Patidar was asked if he wanted to be captain. In fact, when the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association and head coach Chandrakant Pandit offered Patidar the Ranji captaincy four years ago, he wished to focus on his performance. "Initially, when we offered Ranji captaincy, Chandu sir asked him, and he was reluctant. He said, 'No, I want to concentrate on my batting',' MPCA secretary Sanjeev Rao recalls.
And he did concentrate on his batting. Patidar had two stellar seasons with the bat, averaging over 80 in red-ball cricket during the 2021-22 and 2022 seasons. In the season after, he went on to accumulate 884 runs and soon reaped the rewards with an India call-up. After two seasons with RCB, he made his ODI debut in 2023 and then played Test cricket for India next year.
With all the experience and exposure he had since the captaincy offer when Pandit took over as head coach, when Bobat asked the question, Patidar wanted to give it a go in domestic cricket. He went to MPCA and Pandit and asked if he could lead the white-ball sides. 'He volunteered himself this year in the Mushtaq Ali Trophy, 'Chandu sir, I'll lead the team.' He said, 'Since Shubham Sharma was our Ranji captain, and he is doing well, he shouldn't be disturbed.' When Chandu sir offered him T20 captaincy, he readily accepted,' says Rao.
As fate would have it, things fell into place for Patidar and MP. He led the state side to the final of the domestic T20 tournament — the knockouts were played in Bengaluru. Patidar smashed 428 runs at 61.14 average and 186.08 strike rate, taking the team to the summit clash. However, they fell short in the final hurdle against the Shreyas Iyer-led Mumbai. During these knockout games, Patidar and Bobat spent a lot of time talking about captaincy and his leadership. Bobat, too, gave him confidence that he could succeed as captain.
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