INDIA: The Royal Challengers Bangalore, on March 12, 2022, named former South African national team captain Faf du Plessis as their captain for the IPL 2022. Du Plessis, one of the Chennai Super Kings’ consistent performers, was an obvious choice after Virat Kohli decided to step down as the franchise’s leader after a decade of trophy drought. He was purchased by RCB for Rs 7 crore and will be available for the entire season.
In an event here, team chairman Prathmesh Mishra and director cricket operations Mike Hesson handed over the cap to Du Plessis. “Coming in as an outsider, I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity,” said Du Plessis, who relinquished South Africa’s captaincy across all formats in 2020.
Du Plessis, a four-time IPL champion, has played 100 games, scoring 2935 runs at a strike rate of 131 or higher. In CSK’s IPL-winning season last year, he scored 633 runs. “I have a lot of IPL experience. I understand the dynamics, and it’s no small thing to put your trust in an outsider, mainly an overseas player, to do the job of a leader,” According to Faf Du Plessis.
He clarified that he would rely heavily on domestic players’ experience and someone of Virat Kohli’s caliber. “I will heavily rely on the incredible experience that we have in both our domestic and international players.” Du Plessis went on to say that he would like to work with their former captain, Virat Kohli, who has led the team since 2014.
“We have great captains. Virat is one of the best leaders in the game. That will be my shadow, and we will bounce everything off each other.” “I’m excited to get started, and hopefully, we can put on a good show for the fans,” the veteran South African added. In a recorded video message, Indian great Kohli, who is currently playing in the Day/Night second Test against Sri Lanka, also congratulated Du Plessis. “I couldn’t be happier to hand over the baton to a good friend, someone I’ve known for a long time,” Kohli said.
“We’ve been in contact for many years. Apart from cricket, he’s one of the few guys I’ve gotten to know a little better. My collaboration with Faf will be exciting. The team we’ve assembled is incredible. Our team appears to be well-balanced and robust, and I can’t wait to get started,” Kohli continued. When RCB aggressively bid for Du Plessis in a bidding war with his former franchise CSK and Delhi Capitals at last month’s auction, it was clear that he would lead the franchise.
When asked if they bid for the South African fabulous with the captaincy in mind, director of cricket operations Mike Hesson said it was a little bit of both. It was a mix of the two. We had Maxwell and Virat’s captaincy experience, which we kept. We felt within our leadership group and Harshal Patel that we needed to expand on who we wanted to repurchase. So it was more about increasing our leadership group and building on that.
The three-time runner-up RCB has yet to win a title and will now look to qualify for the IPL playoffs for the third consecutive time. In search of an elusive IPL title, RCB will kick off their season against Punjab Kings on March 27 in Mumbai.
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