The Patidar Way: RCB captain, under the radar and above the rest

The bus to Dharamsala leaves before midnight. If you’ve taken a trip, the kind where you set off in the plains and wake up somewhere in the middle of the Himalayas, you’ll know the driver. Not by name, but by instinct. He’s not the flashy one. Hairpin bends do not report. It simply reads them, one by one, a foot on the brake when the road calls for it, a foot on the gas when it opens up. There is a craft in it. There is experience in it. And if you look hard enough, it’s beautiful.

I thought of that driver on Tuesday night as I sat in the stands at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala watching Rajat Patidar bat.

Qualifier 1, RCB vs GT: Highlights | Scorecard

At the beginning of the 14th century, p headlights carving the Dhauladhar range into silhouette behind the scoreboard, RCB were 140 for 4. Patidar was 14 off 10 balls – alert, unhurried, absorbing. In total, somewhere around 200-220 seemed on the cards. On this ground, in this tournament, in this absurd IPL, where scores of 230 were chased as if they were a club cricket total, it might not have been enough. Dharamsala has already seen two matches this season and both were won by the chasing side. The wicket, the elevation, the outfield, all come together to make batting second an advantage.

Patidar knew all this. And then he quietly changed everything.

MASS IN THE HILLS

What followed these 10 careful orbs were 23 orbs of something close to violent. He was launched twice in that 14th year – the universe offered gifts and the Patidar accepted both without ceremony. He drove Prasidh Krishna back over his head. He pulled Mohammed Siraj off the front foot. He swept, lofted, cut through the away side with a kind of controlled ferocity that the Gujarat titans attack simply couldn’t handle. By the time RCB reached 254 for 5 in 20 overs, Patidar had produced 93 from 33 balls – five fours, nine sixes, a strike rate of 281.82. Gujarat Titans were bowled out for 162 in reply. Royal Challengers Bengaluru won by 92 runs to advance to the final of IPL 2026.

And when Patidar walked off the field, his teammates gave him a standing ovation. The crowd in Dharamsala, already stirred by the cricket and the cool mountain air, began to sing. Patidar. Patidar. Rajat Patidar is RCB’s man for the big moments. (Image: Reuters)

It was the knock of a man who had learned every turn of the road that lay ahead.

WE CHOOSE OUR MOMENTS

Mo Bobat has a peculiar quality when he talks about Patidar. The RCB director of cricket chooses his words carefully in press conferences – precise, measured, never over the top. But when the question turns to his captain, something stirs. The tongue becomes warmer. Compliments are earned rather than given.

“That was a really weird knock,” Bobat said after the game.

“The kind of knock we’re used to from him now. Some outrageous shots, but really aggressive intent. And I think that sets the example.”

What Bobat describes as an example is something Patidar has been building quietly and systematically over two seasons. It’s not just punching power. It’s reading situations — knowing when to anchor, knowing when to attack, knowing like a bus driver knows where the road opens.

“One of the things I think he’s done well this year is he’s picked his moments pretty well,” Bobat explained. “In a game like today – he took his time to get in, we lost a couple of quick wickets. Rajat recognized those moments and understood that he needed to build a mini-partnership and then go through the gears again – that’s something I liked to see. Reading situations and conditions and knowing when to go up and when to go down is a really, really impressive part of his development.”

Not once does Bobat point to a specific shot, a specific technical repair, a specific drill in the nets. Because the improvement is deeper.

“I don’t necessarily refer to specific shots or areas of his game,” he said. “He’s a pretty versatile player.

THE STORY OF THE RCB CAPTAIN

The story of how Rajat Patidar arrived at this moment is, like most good cricket stories, one of rejection and resilience.

He was picked up by RCB in the 2021 auction for his base price of 20 lakh – a relative unknown from Madhya Pradesh who has been quietly piling up runs in domestic cricket for years. He made his debut that season, played four matches, scored 71 runs and was dismissed. There was no franchise bid for him in the 2022 mega auction. Not even one. It remained unsold.

Then in the middle of the tournament in 2022 RCB’s uncapped wicketkeeper Luvnith Sisodia has been ruled out due to injury. Patidar was signed as his replacement — again for 20 million, again without guarantee. What he did with that second chance is now part of IPL folklore. He scored 333 runs in 8 games, including a remarkable 112 not out off 54 balls in the Eliminator against Lucknow Super Giants at the Eden Gardens. He became the first uncapped player to score a century in the IPL playoffs. RCB won that match. A heel injury wiped out all of 2023. He returned in 2024 and scored 395 runs at a strike rate of 177.13. By the time the 2025 mega auction came around, RCB had retained only three players – Virat Kohli, Yash Dayal and Rajat Patidar.

And then they handed him the captaincy.

It was a surprise to many. Right there was Kohli, one of the best to ever play the game, the man who led RCB for years. But Patidar had already captained Madhya Pradesh in domestic cricket – leading them to the final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, scoring 428 runs in the tournament at a success rate of 186. The franchise saw something in him beyond batting average. They saw the leader.

Everyone doubted Rajat Patidar when he was announced as captain. He has not played for India, nor a great consistent batsman.

But RCB & Virat Kohli believed in him, supported him, they all play for the team. This is how a team works without snakes.

pic.twitter.com/WJrXgKMvYG— Messi v Stan (@Im_vkolhi) May 26, 2026

In IPL 2025, with captaincy in hand, Patidar led RCB to their first ever IPL title. An 18-year drought has ended. That season he scored 312 runs at a strike rate of 143 – not flashy numbers by his own standards, but the innings that mattered arrived when they were needed. This is a Patidar thing. He is at his best when the going gets tough.

SPIN BASHER ONLY?

Batting has taken to a whole other level this season. 486 runs at a strike rate of 196 and plays with a fearlessness that has become the team’s identity. He spoiled the open games in the middle overs, absorbed the pressure early and then exploded. Against Rajasthan Royals earlier in the season, RCB lost early wickets and Patidar spent the first part of his innings absorbing, holding and refusing to give his wicket away. Then he shifted into gear. “It was really encouraging to see that,” Bobat said, “because it takes a real level of discipline and sophistication in your thinking and planning.”

There was also a picture to fix. For a long time, Patidar was labeled as a capricious – a batsman who was good at changing deliveries but was less comfortable with pace. Bobat laughed it off at Tuesday’s news conference with the good humor of a man who knows he had a hand in building a brand. “I remember calling him a ‘spin basher’ sometime last season and I think he got pretty mad at me because I suggested it was just spin,” Bobat said. “So I think he’s probably trying to prove something to me.

The second delivery is not too bad here. Rajat Patidar does Rajat Patidar things. Quality player.

After years of disappointment, RCB are all set for their second IPL title in a row!#IPL2026 pic.twitter.com/OA0lrdS2PD— CricBlog (@cric_blog) May 26, 2026

Against Gujarat’s pace attack in Dharamsala on Tuesday, the point was made comprehensively. Siraj, Rabada, Prasidh Krishna — all were treated with equal ferocity. “Whether he’s facing pace bowling or spin bowling, off the front foot or back foot, the ball hits the middle of his bat quite often,” Bobat noted. “So I think he’s got really good, sound fundamentals.

What drives it all, says Bobat, is an almost supernatural control of energy and self. “He’s very good at managing his own energy, which I think is serving him well right now – he saves his energy for batting and also saves his energy when he needs to do a tactic right in the middle. He keeps things pretty simple. He’s someone who wants to focus on his job when he gets on the field and he’s pretty relaxed about everything off the field.”

Calm, in other words, is not indifference. It’s a system.

“Any team that has a captain who plays well fills him with even more self-confidence,” added Bobat. “He’s gaining more and more experience with every game he’s captained and that will only add to his own confidence and resilience under pressure.”

A DIFFERENT KIND OF SUPERSTAR

Patidar does not have the air of a superstar. He doesn’t court the limelight like Kohli, he doesn’t carry the mythological weight of MS Dhoni or the easy charisma of Rohit Sharma. He gives few interviews, says little that is particularly quotable, and lets the batting announce it. In a league that relies on personality as much as performance, he is something of an anomaly – a man who has become indispensable almost entirely on the strength of his cricket.

And yet, as I stood in the Dharamsala stands on Tuesday night and listened to the crowd chant his name as he left, as he turned the match, turned the total, turned the entire evening on its head — it was impossible not to feel that he was becoming something bigger. Not a superstar in the conventional sense. Something more durable. A player who is completely trusted by his team. A captain who leads primarily by doing.

Now comes the finale. For the second consecutive year, Patidar are one match away from the title. If he wins it, he will join the most exclusive club in Indian cricket – MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma are the only captains to win back-to-back IPL titles. Society doesn’t come more significant than that. Rajat Patidar submits a reason for calling to India. (Image: Reuters)

But there’s another question that’s been growing throughout this tournament, and Tuesday’s knock will only heighten it. Patidar played ODIs for India and made his Test debut in 2024. However, he remains uncapped in T20 Internationals. Aged 33, with 486 IPL runs this season at 196 – off-spin and break-rate equal, reading conditions better than almost anyone in the competition – the inevitable question is: how much longer can the selectors keep an eye on him?

In a T20I middle-order that has often looked for exactly the kind of aggressive batter to read the situation that Patidar is, the case looks stronger than ever. He is not a wild stopper who goes from ball one and hopes for the best. He is a bus driver in the hills – patient on the climbs, ruthless when the road opens up. International cricket, especially in the shortest format, could use this.

The road from Dharamsala winds its way back down to the plains. Somewhere on it, the bus driver grips the wheel and reads the next turn. He’s been doing it long enough to know: the best is yet to come.

– The end

Issued by:

Amar Panicker

Published on:

27 May 2026 08:22 IST