India, Feb. 13 -- Quiet. Stubborn. Steely. That's what Rajat Patidar is to Royal Challengers Bengaluru head coach Andy Flower. He tried his best "not to embarrass" Patidar in describing his qualities, which practically convinced the RCB management to appoint him as their new captain ahead of IPL 2025. But they flowed naturally. As you would expect when a franchise, especially like RCB, hands over its reigns to someone with minimal international experience but a lot of promise.

Prior to Thursday's announcement, there was some speculation about Virat Kohli returning as captain of the franchise. Kohli was the RCB captain from 2013 to 2021 and has a fine record, though he could not land them the title. But RCB decided to look at the future a...