Courtesy: RCB/IPL
Mo Bobat, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) Director of Cricket, made a startling comment on rumours surrounding Virat Kohli potentially becoming the new captain of the team after former skipper Faf du Plessis wasn’t retained for the IPL 2025 season. In an exclusive interview, Mo Bobat was “sorry to disappoint” everyone about how they haven’t made a decision to appoint Virat Kohli or anyone else as the new captain of RCB until now.
Notably, during the last three years of Faf du Plessis as the skipper, Royal Challengers Bengaluru reached IPL playoffs twice, but still, they were unable to make the final of the tournament. Prior to the appointment of Faf du Plessis as the captain of RCB, Virat Kohli had led the team for majority of the last decade, which saw them secure a place in the final once in 2016, losing to Sunrisers Hyderabad in a thriller at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
We have not made any decision related to captaincy or on Virat Kohli's role in it: Mo Bobat
While talking to JioCinema after announcing their player retention for the IPL 2025 season, Mo Bobat addressed the captaincy scenario at Royal Challengers Bengaluru in detail. He was quoted as saying, as per NDTV Sports, “I am sorry to disappoint everybody listening. We have not made any decision related to captaincy or on that (Kohli returning as skipper) as yet. We are open to options. The only obvious decision we made was not to retain Faf. He did a great job last year and the year before that. So from our perspective, we will keep a very open mind when we head to the auction.”
Moreover, ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction, Royal Challengers Bengaluru retained only three players despite reaching the playoffs in two of the last three seasons. Virat Kohli is the first retention with a whopping price tag of INR 21 Crore, while they also kept the likes of Rajat Patidar and Yash Dayal for INR 11 Crore and INR 5 Crore respectively, and with that, they will have INR 83 Crore at their disposal to build the squad at the mega auction for the next IPL season.
