Royal Challengers Bengaluru made a bold decision to appoint Rajat Patidar as the new captain for the IPL 2025. The 31-year-old has led Madhya Pradesh in domestic cricket, but doesn’t have enough experience of leading a team in such a high-voltage tournament. Virat Kohli’s name was heavily discussed ahead of the season, but the management put their trust in Patidar, who has done a commendable job since.
Bengaluru have won four out of six matches in the ongoing season and are currently third on the points table. Patidar has been terrific with his decision-making skills, which has now received praise from senior cricketer Bhuvneshwar Kumar. The pacer noted that Patidar has been calm and that’s a much-needed quality in the shortest format of the game. Bhuvneshwar added that he has handled things well and his bowling changes have been superb.
“He's been very good. The best thing is that he's been calm. That's what he needed, especially in this format. Because when you lose a match, the easy thing is to get panicked. And that's what he has done. We lost two matches, but he's been the same whether we won or we lost. So he's been handling everything very well. With the bowling changes and everything, he's been superb,” Bhuvneshwar said.
The 35-year-old also opened up on his partnership with Josh Hazlewood. The veteran stated that the roles are pretty similar as they bowl both with the new ball and in the death and added that with the way that the team is batting, their job is to do well with the ball and get the job done.
“The role cannot be defined before the match. Normally, if you look at our bowling, Hazlewood and I both bowl with the new ball, and both bowl at the death. So it's a pretty standard role we have, but it keeps changing from match to match. It depends on how we bowl in the first few overs, how the team is batting, and so on. But yes, being experienced bowlers, we both want to take wickets and want to do well for the team,” he added.