Newly-appointed Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Rajat Patidar on Wednesday said he would want to pick talisman Virat Kohli’s brains to learn the nuances of leadership and stressed on the importance of “standing with players” in all circumstances. Patidar has taken over as RCB skipper from Faf Du Plessis, who was released ahead of last year’s mega auction. “I’m not that much expressive, but I’m aware of the situation of the matches. So, I think it’s important to back my players and stand with them in all situations, and give the sort of environment where they feel relaxed and confident,” Patidar said in a press conference here.
Patidar said the experienced names in the RCB dressing room can navigate him through the challenging job of IPL captaincy.
“We have a group of leaders, where their experience and ideas will definitely help in my new leadership role, and grow as an individual also. And it’s a great opportunity for me to learn from one of the best of cricket (Kohli).
“I think his ideas and experience will definitely help me in my leadership role. I’ve done a lot of (batting) partnerships with him. I know him very well. We’re looking forward to that partnership with the bat as well,” he said.
Patidar also spoke about the chats surrounding RCB captaincy ahead of a new season and said he was a part of it.
But the 31-year-old said he wanted to have a taste of captaincy first with his state team Madhya Pradesh before accepting the more strenuous role with the RCB.
Patidar had captained MP in last year’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the Vijay Hazare Trophy, but a major chunk of those tournaments were held after the auction.
“Last year, I think it was me and Mo (Bobat, the Director of Cricket at RCB) who spoke about it (captaincy). Mo asked me, are you interested in doing captaincy? I told him that before doing the captaincy of RCB, I’d like to have the captaincy of the state team.
“So, I got a hint from there that I could get the captaincy. So when I got the information that either Virat or myself could do the captaincy, I was very happy about it,” he added.
So, did the RCB have always had Patidar in mind as their new captain or did the first right of refusal went to Kohli, their former captain? RCB head coach Andy Flower detailed the pre-auction scenario.
“Actually, in our (captaincy) discussions with Virat, I thought the integrity and maturity he showed as a man were of the highest calibre.
“One of the things that stood out was the energy and enthusiasm that he is looking forward to do this IPL with RCB.
“He obviously likes and respects Rajat, both as a person and as a player. I think that relationship will be very important.
“My experience with him last season and the way he supported Faf when we were struggling in the first half of the season, and it only made my respect for him grow. I’d say the same thing about our discussions over the captaincy of RCB,” said Flower.
So, did RCB consider some other players like KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer, who were up for grabs in the auction, for their captaincy role? “All those guys are obviously fantastic players and excellent leaders. They have captained or are captaining elsewhere. But we wanted to focus on assembling the right team, rather than just hunting for an individual that might fulfil a leadership role.
“So for us, it was simply a case of trusting the internal options that we had. If we didn’t recruit anybody from external, we would be very happy with both Rajat and Virat as options,” said Flower.
The Zimbabwean said they were quite happy with the way the auction panned out for the Royal Challengers.
“We were happy with lots of the other targets that we had, and the guys that we brought in. So, it (buying big names) was never really a pressure point for our decision-making,” he added.
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