Rajat Patidar’s Historic Rise: From Unsold Player to RCB’s IPL 2025 Title-Winning Captain

Discover how Rajat Patidar led RCB to their first IPL title in 2025, becoming a history-making captain after just 13 matches and completing a remarkable journey from unsold player to champion.

Rajat Patidar (Image Source: Google)

History will always remember that Rajat Patidar was appointed as RCB captain on February 13, 2025, and by June 3, 2025 he had led the team to its maiden and most awaited IPL title. For Royal Challengers Bengaluru, defeating Punjab Kings by six runs in the final at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad was the culmination of the ups and downs, seen in the 18 seasons of the IPL.

For skipper Rajat Patidar, it was a history-making moment because he had achieved something which some other big names, while leading the side, couldn’t achieve. However, this all puts extra pressure on his young shoulders as now RCB are the defending champions.

Rajat Patidar won an IPL Trophy, after leading the side in only 13 matches and is at par with Rohit Sharma in this respect. The number of matches taken as a captain to win an IPL Trophy by some others: Hardik Pandya and Shane Warne (15 matches), Adam Gilchrist (24), David Warner (33), MS Dhoni (43), Gautam Gambhir (47) and Shreyas Iyer (70). He is the sixth Indian and ninth captain overall to win the IPL trophy.

Another outstanding record generally missed is that Shane Warne and Rajat Patidar are the only 2 captains to have won the IPL, but have never played a T20 International for their respective nations. The Madhya Pradesh cricketer has a chance to play.

Shane Warne played in the IPL after he had retired from International cricket and many consider him to be one of the unluckiest not to captain as well as not to play T20 Internationals. Incidentally, both Warne and Rajat won IPL titles in their first season as IPL captain. Warne couldn’t add another IPL title to his record, but Rajat Patidar can enter his name in the history books by defending the title.

So, at the moment, Rajat is the first Indian cricketer to win the IPL title as captain without playing a T20I for his national team. The right-hand batsman has so far played three Tests and one ODI,
Rajat Patidar was taken up by RCB, ahead of IPL 2021 and the start was not very encouraging. After playing only four games that season (and scoring only 71 runs), he was released. In the auction for the 2022 season, he was on the ‘unsold’ list as none of the ten sides took any interest in the 29-year-old batter from MP, but destiny had written another story. The mid-season injury to Luvnith Sisodia created a vacancy in the RCB dug-out, and they signed him for the remainder of the season for the price of INR 20 Lakh. He was unsold, unnoticed, and with nothing to lose, he joined.

This replacement player ended the season as their third-highest run-scorer (333 at a strike rate of 152.75). He made headlines for scoring 112* off 54 balls in the Eliminator played against Lucknow Super Giants at Eden Gardens. This career ‘turning point’ performance earned him a maiden call-up to the Indian ODI squad against South Africa. A Test debut followed soon after, against England in Visakhapatnam.

2023 would have been a season to establish him in the side, but he missed the entire season due to an injury. However, he returned with a bang in the 2024 season (395 runs from 13 innings). A replacement player of Rs. 20 lacs in 2022 was retained by the side for Rs 11 crore ahead of the mega auction. With Faf du Plessis leaving the franchise, Rajat was named as the captain for the 2025 season (the 4th Indian and 8th overall captain of RCB). The team has no regrets about their choice.

The 2025 IPL edition was a season of reckoning for the RCB. Their women's side had won the WPL title in 2024 and now many senior men faced the challenge to match them. RCB played with such a vengeance that they became the first team in the IPL to win all the ‘away’ matches and looked like champions. Rajat scored 312 runs in 15 matches, including two half-centuries, against CSK and MI. Only Virat Kohli (657) and Phil Salt (403) scored more runs than him in the season. So a replacement player led RCB to their first IPL title in 18 years.

‘What a turnaround,’ were the words from Kohli for Rajat and he added, ‘Injury replacement to IPL-winning captain, bloody hell, that's a turnaround.’ He also gave Rajat one of his bats, which the RCB skipper accepted with a kiss on the willow.

He is such a devoted cricketer that he sacrificed a lot in his personal life, especially his marriage. Rajat had to postpone his wedding to Gunjan Patidar repeatedly due to his cricket commitments. However, unlike other wives, Gunjan is rarely seen in the stands but was there for him when he lifted the IPL Trophy.