New Delhi: Royal Challengers Bengaluru bought 19 players at the IPL 2025 Auction in Jeddah and their strategy seemed very clear. The franchise didn’t look desperate for a captaincy option and were smart with their bids at the two-day event. The most expensive player bought by the franchise was Josh Hazlewood for Rs 12.50 crore and it wasn’t a surprise that their bids for Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul – two prominent captaincy options in the pool – didn’t cross Rs 11 crore and Rs 10.50 crore respectively.
As TimesofIndia.com had reported, Virat Kohli is set to return as RCB captain from the 2025 edition and the makeup of the 22-member (19 buys and three retentions) squad points in that direction too. They went after Pant and Rahul but the bidding pattern wasn’t desperate. It seemed like bids for the two players was to form the the core but not as a leadership option. They didn’t even raise the paddle for another option – Shreyas Iyer – who eventually went to Punjab Kings for Rs 26.75 crore.
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RCB were aggressive for both Pant and Rahul at the start, but the moment the bid crossed the Rs 10 crore mark, they were happy to play spectator as teams like Lucknow Super Giants, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Capitals went after Pant, and DC, Kolkata Knight Riders, Chennai Super Kings seemed in no mood to let Rahul go.
And it wasn’t a surprise that they didn’t go back to former skipper Faf Du Plessis who could have come cheaper than the Rs 7 crore they were paying earlier.
The franchise, which is yet to win an IPL title, have assembled a strong squad for the new cycle and would hope to end the long wait under Kohli, the player who has been with them since the inaugural edition.
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As reporter earlier, Kohli has already had those discussions with the management and made his intentions of stepping into the leadership role clear. He had led RCB from 2013-2021 and the side reached playoffs on four occasions and came agonisingly close to winning the title in 2016 where they lost to SRH in the title clash.
Both Kohli the captain and Kohli the player have unfinished business in the IPL and it remains to be seen whether 2025 could be that year.