The rumour mill is strong about the possible return of Virat Kohli as RCB skipper.
Credit: DH Photo/S K Dinesh
With the mega auctions for the Indian Premier League (IPL) being done and dusted, the stage is now set for the IPL 2025 season which will begin from March 14, 2025 and go on till May 25.
Though IPL 2025 is a a good four months away, most of the franchises have started preparing for the cash-rich lucrative T20 League in the right earnest.
But among the 10 teams, only a few franchises have named their captain. The biggest question lingering in the mind of IPL fans is as to who will lead Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).
The fact that RCB is going to have a new skipper for IPL 2025 was clear the moment the Bengaluru-based franchise released incumbent Faf du Plessis just before the auctions.
The rumour mill is strong about the possible return of RCB talisman Virat Kohli as the skipper. In a span of almost eight seasons, the star Indian batter had led the Bengaluru-based franchise in 143 matches, winning 66 and losing 70.
Under his leadership RCB reached the final in 2016 where they lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad in a high-scoring thriller at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
However, during the two-day auction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, RCB’s Director of Cricket Mo Bobat remained tight-lipped about Kohli's potential return as skipper.
“Virat is a central figure, he is a senior member of the team. But we haven’t made any decision when it comes to captaincy. We'll decide later on. He dropped a few hot text messages to us yesterday, giving us feedback."
In a timely reminder of his class, as the auctions were going on, Kohli shrugged of his indifferent form with an unbeaten century in the first cricket Test at Perth where India registered a thumping win against Australia.
In the current RCB squad, only Krunal Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (both of whom were picked on the last day of the auctions) are the only other players who have some prior experience in captaincy and that probably hints the return of 'King Kohli' as captain.
The only other contender.. a darkhorse -- is Rajat Patidar. It remains to be seen if RCB, who have been the eternal bridesmaid in IPL -- having come close to winning the title many a time, only to falter-- will hand over the captaincy to a greenhorn like Patidar.
In that scenario the return of Kohli as RCB skipper looks imminent, though these are still to early days to predict.