On March 27, the Royal Challengers Bangalore will begin their IPL 2022 campaign against Punjab Kings. The RCB announced the nomination of Faf du Plessis as their new captain last week, ahead of the start of the IPL 2022 season.
In the major auction leading up to the tournament, the franchise paid INR 7 crores for the South African cricketer, beating out his old side Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals in the bidding war.
The RCB also bought Indian wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik at the auction, and there were a lot of rumors about who would be the team's future captain in the run-up to the 'RCB Unbox' event on March 12.
Glenn Maxwell was also a favorite for the captaincy post in the club, alongside Faf and Karthik.
Karthik discussed the potential of playing under Faf as captain in a conversation with Danish Sait for the RCB, and also recalled his chat with Virat Kohli during India's tour of England, where he "slipped" in a request to be considered for the RCB.
When Danish Sait asked Karthik in a chat for RCB, if he had indeed talked to Virat about being considered for RCB, Karthik said, “Yeah, I slipped it into him and Kohli said, "you might be talking to the wrong person, bro!"
Kohli confirmed his decision to step down as RCB captain ahead of the 2021 edition's second phase in the UAE.
Karthik stated of Faf du Plessis that the South African is "tactically astute" and that his leadership is "second-to-none."
“As a player, he is somebody who has maximized his potential and that's always a good sign for a leader, because they will have a lot empathy, they will understand what a cricketer might be going through. That's very important of a leader. I've also played against him,” said Karthik.
“When he was a leader of South Africa, I've seen that he's tactically very astute. He's somebody who knows his game very well. In IPL, at the end of the day, you need tactically very good captain. I think he is second-to-none. Leadership is about handling people and everybody will vouch for the fact that he's a terrific guy.”
