3 Best Captaincy Options For RCB: Having retained three players earlier – Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Mohammed Siraj – the Royal Challengers Bangalore bought 19 players at the IPL 2022 mega-auction. 14 of the total 22 in their squad are Indians while they have fulfilled their quota of 8 overseas players.
Despite having some of the greatest names in world cricket over the years, RCB have failed to clinch the IPL trophy even once, adding more frustrations to their fans. They have reached the final thrice, but couldn’t deliver the final punch.
For the upcoming season, the first order of business would be to identify a new captain after Virat Kohli stepped down as the skipper after leading the franchise for 9 seasons.
There are three men in RCB’s squad who could take the captaincy armband:
Faf du Plessis
Bought for 7 crore, Faf du Plessis is the front-runner to be RCB’s new captain; the franchise bid fiercely staving off competition from CSK, who wanted to regain the South African’s services.
However, it was RCB who managed to land the former Protea skipper. Likely to open alongside Virat Kohli, du Plessis is someone who has everyone’s respect as a batsman and a leader. He has led his country tremendously in the past, and could be asked by RCB to captain the franchise for one season, if not more.
Faf du Plessis was the second-leading run-scorer in the IPL last season and was Man of the Match in the final versus KKR.
Glenn Maxwell
Retained for 11 crore ahead of the auction, Glenn Maxwell had a brilliant season for RCB last year – scoring 513 runs at a strike rate of 144 in the team’s run to the playoffs.
Maxwell, who has turned into a proper all-rounder with his off-spin now effective in wicket-taking as well, has captaincy experience with the Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League; he has twice captained the Stars to the BBL final.
Dinesh Karthik
Dinesh Karthik has travelled around several teams in his IPL career, including RCB in 2015, and is back now, bought for 5.5 crore. There is a chance that Karthik may also don the captain’s hat this season.
A vastly experienced campaigner, Karthik has been successfully leading Tamil Nadu’s domestic side. In the IPL, he led KKR to playoffs in 2018, and was skipper of the side next season as well, before relinquishing the duties mid-season in 2022, handing over the reins to Eoin Morgan.
Karthik has been playing the finisher’s role both for Tamil Nadu and KKR and is adept in smashing pace in the death overs – one of the main reasons that RCB went after him in the mega-auction was to replace the void left by AB de Villiers.
RCB squad: Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Anuj Rawat, Dinesh Karthik, Shahbaz Ahmed, Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, Josh Hazlewood, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Suyash Prabhudesai, Luvnith Sisodia, Aneeshwar Gautam, Jason Behrendorff, Karn Sharma, David Willey, Siddarth Kaul, Chama Milind, Mahipal Lomror, Sherfane Rutherford, Finn Allen.
