Virat Kohli To Return To RCB’s Captaincy For IPL 2025? (image-twitter/NviiiJ25409)
As the Indian Premier League player auction for the 2025 season was concluded in Jeddah on Monday, the Royal Challengers Bengluru’s strategy seemed clear. During the auction, the franchise was not seen as desperate to look for any other captaincy option and was smart during the bid.
The only most expensive player the franchise had bought in was Josh Hazlewood for Rs 12.50 crore. And their bid for Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul, two prominent captaincy options in the pool didn’t cross Rs 11 crore and Rs 10.50 crore respectively.
With this, it can be widely concluded that India’s former captain will return to RCB’s captainship. Though the franchise had gone after Pant and Rahul, the bid was never too desperate, and neither did they raise the paddle for Shreyas Iyer as well.
Initially, during the bid, RCB seemed aggressive for both Pant and Rahul, but the moment the bid crossed the Rs 10 crore mark, they took up the role of spectator.
For this IPL season, the team has gathered up a stronger squad. Though the franchise has yet to win the IPL title, the team earlier managed to reach the playoffs on four occasions, and in 2016, they even came agonizingly close to winning the title, however, lost to SRH in the title clash.
Under Virat Kohli’s captaincy, the player who has been with them since the inaugural edition, the 22-member squad is hoping to win the IPL 2025 edition.
The team during the auction had released Faf du Plessis, who had served as the captain in the previous season and this signalled that Kohli would resume his leadership role.
Apart from retaining Virat Kohli, RCB had also secured the services of Rajat Patidar for Rs 11 crore and pacer Yash Dayal for Rs 5 crore.
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Moreover, the franchise had made a significant investment in Phil Salt and Jitesh Sharma, with a whopping Rs 11.50 crores spent on the England opener and 11 crores on the Indian wicketkeeper-batter.
The team further boosted their line-up by acquiring England all-rounder Liam Livingstone for Rs 8.75 crores and welcoming back Aussie pacer Josh Hazlewood for the same amount.
