New innings for Patidar
new delhi: Rajat Patidar was unveiled as the skipper of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on Thursday. It is a good sign that franchises in the Indian Premier League (IPL) are willing to back homegrown talent and not bank on foreigners as leaders alone. At 31 and a seasoned star for RCB, Rajat has been the quiet sort with the RCB. In terms of the franchise’s popularity and massive fan base, RCB generates huge interest. They are yet to win the IPL title even once, but still connect with the masses in Bengaluru and globally.
For those who follow a thing or two about auction and strategies, when Rajat was retained at a price of Rs 11 crore, it suggested how much the team values him as a player and someone who can lead. On Thursday, RCB launched Rajat in lavish style, so typical of a side which had been projected first by business tycoon Vijay Mallya. There was a lot of gossip if Virat Kohi would return to lead RCB. That was a bit weird as Kohli has done it all. And as the RCB think-tank explained on Thursday, there is no need to assign a leadership role to Kohli since he always plays with enormous passion.
Rewind to what he does in Team India, still, and what he did for Delhi even during a brief Ranji Trophy appearance against Railways a few weeks back here, Kohli will be proactive. The sick part is some still think Kohli is hankering for a captaincy role. One must not forget, when Kohli was a sort of understudy to MS Dhoni, he had picked up a lot of captaincy skills/traits. Just as Dhoni sticks with the Chennai Super Kings team and has in Ruturaj Gaikwad a captain who is trusted, Rajat has been picked for RCB.
It is not as if the decision to name Rajat as captain happened overnight. As a domestic player who has also played for India, he had been asked last year itself if he wanted to lead the franchise. Being sincere and honest, Rajat said he wanted to lead a state side first. The kind of performance which Madhya Pradesh put in this season in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy tournament and the Vijay Hazare Trophy tournament, it projected Rajat in good light. The good part is, Rajat has not been given captaincy by RCB, they have weighed him, assessed him and then handed him the appointment letter.
The RCB side has a big bunch of guys who handle the back end, where Mo Bobat, RCB director of cricket, Andy Flower, Dinesh Karthik and of course, Virat Kohli have been talking to each other. The message put out by Kohli on Rajat’s appointment is a good one.
