Rajat Patidar named Bengaluru skipper ahead of the 2025 season

Rajat Patidar has been named Bengaluru's skipper for the upcoming Indian T20 League. The franchise officially announced this at a KSCA event on Thursday (February 13). 

After having released Faf Du Plessis, who had led the side in the previous seasons, the Bengaluru side was without a skipper candidate ahead of the 2025 season. Patidar, who had captained Madya Pradesh to the final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy earlier this season, is now set to become the eighth player to be at the helm. 

Patidar made his Ind T20 League debut in 2021 and has since been a core part of the franchise. He can easily take on pace and spin and has made 27 appearances for Bengaluru, scoring 799 runs at a strike rate of 158.85. He was among the three retentions for Bengaluru ahead of the mega auctions, apart from Yash Dayal and Virat Kohli. He was retained for INR 11 crore. 

However, ahead of the 2022 season, he was released from the squad and went unsold at the auctions. Luvinth Sisodia suffered an unfortunate injury which provided Patidar a second chance with the franchise. He made a striking impression, amassing 333 runs across 8 innings, including a ton, and since then became a vital cog of the side. 

Patidar’s appointment as the skipper is a fresh direction for Bengaluru, who have been led by Virat Kohli and Du Plessis over the years. Kohli first took over the captaincy in May 2011 when regular skipper Daniel Vettori was unavailable for three matches. He was then appointed on a full-time basis in 2012 and led the team until the 2021 season. 

Under Kohli’s leadership, Bengaluru advanced through the playoffs in 2015 and was runners-up the next year, a season in which the ace batter scored a record 973 runs. They also made it to the playoffs in 2020 and 2021. Bengaluru also reached the playoffs in two seasons in the 2022-24 cycle, when Du Plessis took over the captaincy role which was vacated by Virat Kohli. The senior pro, however, did manage the side on three occasions in 2023, in the absence of Du Plessis who was recovering from a rib injury and featured only as an Impact Player.