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Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) created history in the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 as they became consecutive champions, winning their first trophy in 2025 and second trophy in 2026. They became the third team to defend the trophy after Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Mumbai Indians (MI). Rajat Patidar’s RCB has completely changed the team dynamics.
Rajat Patidar joined the team as a replacement in the 2022 season and scored a century in the eliminator against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). However, he was ruled out of IPL 2023, and after that, in 2024, he came in as a batsman and played well. The following year, Rajat was handed the captaincy and in his first season as captain, he led RCB to its first trophy.
Is Rajat Patidar the best captain for RCB?
They ended the 18-year drought and the pain of RCB fans by defeating Punjab Kings (PBKS) in the final at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The following season, his team remained unbeaten, topping the points table and defeating GT in the final at the same venue a few months earlier.
As a captain, Rajat Patidar has led the team in 27 matches, achieving an exceptional win percentage of 70% with 19 wins and 8 losses, the highest for any captain in IPL history (minimum 25 matches).
Rajat Patidar dropped from India call-up
He became the first captain in IPL history to win the title in his first two seasons. Apart from captaincy, Rajat also had a brilliant performance with the bat; This was his best IPL season in terms of statistics.
The middle-order batsman scored 501 runs in 15 matches at an average of 41.75 and had a strike rate of 192.69, which was incredible to watch for the fans and the management. Scored 5 half-centuries during this period. Although it was an amazing season, he was not called up for the T20I series for India.
It was a pleasure working with Rajat – Mo Bobat on working with Rajat Patidar
Now RCB Director of Cricket Mo Bobat has opened up about his captain and talked about Rajat’s personality and how he has changed the atmosphere in the dressing room since taking over the leadership role from Faf du Plessis. Citing Virat Kohli, he also said that no one thought that the franchise would need such a cool captain, because he is always aggressive on the field.
In a video shared by RCB, he said, “It is a pleasure to work with Rajat. He is a very unique person; I don’t think I know anyone like him. He remains completely unaffected by whatever he faces. He has been completely unaffected by getting the captaincy of RCB, which you might not know. Incredible humility as a man.”
“Who would have thought that maybe RCB needed a super-cool, brilliant captain? But he is fantastic. I really respect the way he has carried himself as a person. He is a very good human being. I think when your captain has those kind of values and that level of integrity, it is good role modeling for the rest of the environment.”
