For the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 edition, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have appointed former South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis as captain.
Virat Kohli, who relinquished RCB’s captaincy after the IPL 2021 season, will play only as a specialist batter.
With no burden of captaincy, batting legend Sunil Gavaskar expects Kohli to replicate the performance of the 2016 season when he amassed over 900 runs.
"At the moment, we do not know whether Kohli will be captain again. Sometimes when a player is relieved of the burden of captaincy, he flourishes as he is not thinking about 10 other players,” Gavaskar said while speaking during a Gameplan episode on Star Sports.
"When you are captain, you are thinking about 10 other players and sometimes also the other members of your squad, about their form or lack of form and things that they are not doing right which when they do it right, will be good for the team.
"This season, we might actually see the Kohli of 2016 where he got almost 1000 runs in the IPL season."
The last time Kohli was not leading the RCB was in 2012, after which he took over the team's captaincy from New Zealander Daniel Vettori.
Sunil Gavaskar also spoke about swashbuckling Australia batter Glenn Maxwell, saying he might pull off special performances like AB de Villiers if he wants to.
"Maxwell's cricket depends on how he approaches every inning. There are times when his approach has been unbelievably fantastic and then there are times it has not been that great.
"Last season, he was in a team with Virat Kohli and ABD, two of the finest batsmen that the game has seen and so maybe he lifted his game. He raised the level of his game to try to keep up with that.
"If he says to himself I am going to do what ABD has done for RCB, then RCB could be in for a real magic season from Maxwell."
RCB are placed with Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), Punjab Kings (PBKS), and Gujarat Titans (GT) in group B. They will kick start their campaign against the Mayank Agarwal-led side on 27th March in Mumbai.
(With PTI inputs)
