Former cricketer-turned-commentator Sanjay Manjrekar has opposed the idea of Virat Kohli leading Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season.
Manjrekar said that rather than looking at Kohli’s stature, one should look at his performance with the bat over the last couple of seasons.
While Kohli won the Orange Cap last season, his below-par strike rate in some of the innings drew him a lot of flak, including the joint-slowest IPL hundred off 67 balls.
According to Manjrekar, Kohli’s performance hasn’t been up to the mark to be made the captain again.
“Remove Virat Kohli and his stature from your mind and only look at his performances in the Incredible Premier League, his performances as a batter and performance as a captain. And think whether it’s the right decision to make him the captain again. Last season, he had a strike-rate of 150 and in the 120s in the previous seasons,” Manjrekar told ESPNcricinfo.
On Thursday (October 31), RCB retained Virat Kohli for a whopping price of INR 21 crore. Rajat Patidar (INR 11 crore) and Yash Dayal (INR 5 crore) were the other two players retained by the Bengaluru-based franchise.
Having released Faf du Plessis, the Challengers are seeking a new skipper for the IPL 2025 season. While multiple reports suggest that Kohli is likely to return as leader at RCB, Manjrekar expressed his reservations against it.
“So, as a T20 player, can Virat Kohli make an impact? Because he is Virat Kohli, 95 percent fans want him to be the captain. But if you look at his performances, then his contributions haven’t been impressive enough,” Manjrekar said.
“This is my problem because I don’t like being emotional. I don’t want to go away from the truth with hero worship like fans. In Test cricket, Virat Kohli is out of form, but India need him. But in T20s, I don’t think he is that great a player as he was 7-8 years ago,” he further remarked.
During his first stint as RCB captain from 2013 to 2021, Virat Kohli led the side to playoffs on four occasions. The franchise also made it to the final in 2016, where they lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Kohli had relinquished RCB’s captaincy in 2021, citing that he wanted to give himself some space and manage his workload.
