Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) Director of Cricket Operations, Mike Hesson reveals the idea behind picking Faf du Plessis as the skipper of the side, in the latest RCB podcast shared by the franchise.
South African cricketer, du Plessis was announced as a skipper of the side after Virat Kohli left the captaincy of the RCB before the 2022 edition. As of now, RCB’s skipper is the current holder of ‘Orange Cap’ with 259 runs in 5 innings.
Mike Hesson says RCB wanted someone who would have respect within the group instantly-
“I guess it’s really difficult coming into a group when the previous captain is still there. So we needed somebody that could come in, would have respect within the group instantly because if he comes in a lot of people can be intimidated by the ex-captain being near and potentially aren’t confident enough to make your own decisions,” said RCB’s Director of Cricket.
Du Plessis started leading Proteas as a full-time T20I captain in 2013 and in Test in 2016 after AB de Villiers stepped down from his leadership role. Later In 2017, he was named the ODI captain.
Under his leadership, the SA side made the semi-finals of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2014. Overall, he led in 36 Tests, 39 ODIs and 40 T20Is, of which his national side won 18, 28 and 25 respectively.
Absolute Carnage ??@faf1307 deposits one out of the PARK ??
We are in for an entertaining finish here folks!
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— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 10, 2023
“So we wanted somebody who had captained at an international level before ideally, somebody that had respect from amongst the Indian players and the international players. That was really important that it wasn’t just somebody that would take a year to be in. We felt that at RCB we needed someone to hit the ground running,” he further added.
The former Proteas skipper made his IPL debut in 2012 and was brought by RCB in the 2022 auction for INR 7 crores. In his first IPL season as a skipper, he led RCB into the playoffs in the last edition, whereas the 38-year-old is the second oldest skipper in IPL 2023 after MS Dhoni.
“We wanted a player who we knew could plug and play from a performance point of view. So somebody that had a really good record in the IPL in recent years and Faf clearly had that. And also would work well with the coach and the coaching group because we wanted that inclusive style.
“Somebody that we had a lot of good senior players Virat, Maxi (Glenn Maxwell) DK (Dinesh Karthik) that we were looking to either bring in or retain. So we needed to use those skills rather than just be an authoritarian-style captain. We want to someone who will actually come and work with that group. And Faf ticked all those boxes,” he concluded on RCB’s skipper appointment as quoted by The Indian Express.
In 116 IPL matches, the veteran South African batter has scored 3403 runs with 25 fifties. Interestingly, he lifted the title with Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in 2018 and 21 editions, despite being a star performer in IPL, he was dropped from his national side before the T20 World Cup in 2021 and was not picked after that in the Proteas side.
Meanwhile, in IPL 2023, RCB has won two games in five matches it played this season, they will take on Punjab Kings (PBKS) for their 6th game of the season on April 20 at Mohali.