Bengaluru,feb 13
Newly-appointed Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Rajat Patidar on Thursday said he would want to pick talisman Virat Kohli’s brains to learn the nuances of leadership and stressed on the importance of “standing with players” in all circumstances. Patidar has taken over as RCB skipper from Faf Du Plessis, who was released ahead of last year’s mega auction.”I’m not that much expressive, but I’m aware of the situation of the matches. So, I think it’s important to back my players and stand with them in all situations, and give the sort of environment where they feel relaxed and confident,” Patidar said in a press conference here. Patidar said the experienced names in the RCB dressing room can navigate him through the challenging job of IPL captaincy.”We have a group of leaders, where their experience and ideas will definitely help in my new leadership role, and grow as an individual also. And it’s a great opportunity for me to learn from one of the best of cricket (Kohli).”I think his ideas and experience will definitely help me in my leadership role. I’ve done a lot of (batting) partnerships with him. I know him very well. We’re looking forward to that partnership with the bat as well,” he said.Patidar also spoke about the chats surrounding RCB captaincy ahead of a new season and said he was a part of it.But the 31-year-old said he wanted to have a taste of captaincy first with his state team Madhya Pradesh before accepting the more strenuous role with the RCB.Patidar had captained MP in last year’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the Vijay Hazare Trophy, but a major chunk of those tournaments were held after the auction.
“Last year, I think it was me and Mo (Bobat, the Director of Cricket at RCB) who spoke about it (captaincy). Mo asked me, are you interested in doing captaincy? I told him that before doing the captaincy of RCB, I’d like to have the captaincy of the state team.
