How Virat Kohli reacted to Rajat Patidar’s appointment as captain and why RCB paid Rs 11 crore for Jitesh Sharma

Mo was part of the ECB set-up when England won the cricket World Cup and if that lifetime achievement wasn’t enough, he would go on to help Royal Challengers Bangalore live up to their ambitious ‘Ee Sala Cup Namde’ (This time the Cup is ours) promise this year.

So what’s the secret of RCB’s 2025 heist? Why did they pick Rajat Patidar as skipper? How did Virat Kohli react to this change of guard?

L-R: RCB skipper Rajat Patidar with coach Andy Flower and Virat Kohli during IPL 2025.(Sportzpics/IPL)

Mo is methodical, he loves his conversation to have a sequence. He also likes to give the context to what he does. He starts this story by mentioning RCB’s 2024 skipper, the South African great Faf du Plessis. Letting him go in the 2025 auction, according to the RCB’s cricket director, was the toughest decision he had taken. “We could have easily just continued with Faf. Unfortunately, maybe his age was working against him but certainly his leadership capability and his batting weren’t working against him,” recalls Mo.

The team management wasn’t averse to looking within the team. Was there anybody in RCB with captaincy potential? That’s when Mo had a word with Rajat Patidar. On the foothills of the Himalayas, the issue got discussed.

“This was the 2024 season, we were playing Punjab away at Dharamshala and we were at practice. I just took the opportunity to ask Rajat for his views on leadership. He’s a very quiet guy. I asked him – ‘Do you have any captaincy aspirations?’ He looked at me a bit surprised, he wasn’t expecting the question,” recalls Mo. “But he did say he was interested and he likes leadership.” Mo would make it clear that there was no guarantee that he would be made the RCB captain, this was the franchise putting in place a group of Indian leaders.

Informing Virat

The RCB man also explains why they didn’t take the obvious decision of making Virat the captain. “Virat would have been a very comfortable choice and we could have offered it to him and I’m sure if we’d have done it for RCB since he loves the franchise a lot. But we just thought it’s a good opportunity for us to take this leap and go for a new RCB captain,” says Mo.

After Rajat’s acceptance of captaincy, Mo and Flower would call on Virat. “We went to see him in Ahmedabad and talked it through with him. He really liked the idea. We said, we’re going to need your support and he said “I’m there for Rajat, I’ll support him. You know it’s nice to have his blessing and support. And it was then we spoke to Rajat and offered him the role and the rest is ..” narrates Mo.

RCB director of cricket Mo Bobat. (Special Arrangement)

“Rajat has Virat’s respect as a cricketer. Virat knows what it takes to deal with RCB’s expectation, which I think is a privilege, but some people are daunted by that. He liked what he saw in Rajat …”

Virat would deliver on the promise, he would be all that Rajat wasn’t and much more. “Rajat’s a calm guy and he doesn’t have to bring the intensity because Virat brings the intensity and the standard. I love that about Virat. He’s the sort of player that I would want to take the field with because he’s so aggressive. He just sets the bar so high,” he says.

Why Rs 11 crore for Jitesh Sharma?

It doesn’t take just the captain or the team’s star player to make a team win the IPL. The standout feature of the 2025 IPL champions was the contribution of players like Jitesh Sharma, Krunal Pandy, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Tim David. This once again wasn’t the case of RCB’s leap of faith working. This again was a result of hard planning and process.

Mo likes face-to-face discussions with players, he prefers to “interview players, look them in the eye to get a sense of what they want to achieve.” After the interaction he had with Jitesh, Mo liked the drive and passion in him. He was very keen to sign him, the same was true for Krunal. When on the auction day, the RCB table kept raising the paddle, many didn’t agree with their valuation of these non-regular Team India players.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Jitesh Sharma, Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar after winning IPL trophy. (Virat Kohli/Instagram)

To make his point, Mo gives Jitesh’s example. “Scouting him, video analysing his performances, meeting him face-to-face, DK (RCB mentor and batting coach Dinesh Karthik) talking to him, getting him at auction and making him central to our plans. We got him at auction initially at Rs 7 crore. Then we had to write a match. We went up to 11. People thought we were mad,” he says. Jitesh’s 33-ball 85 in the last league game that helped RCB reach the play-offs and has been called the inning of the IPL. RCB were not mad, they were methodical.

Mo is getting late. The interview continues as he walks to the platform where the train that would take him home waits. Before leaving, the seller of the dream and keeper of promises, says RCB is now on the grand path that has MI and CSK in the front. It’s 7 pm and Mo once again is lost to the crowd.