IPL 2025 Auction: Who will captain Royal Challengers Bengaluru next season?

Royal Challengers Bengaluru signed a total of 22 players over two days of bidding. England all-rounder Liam Livingstone and Australians Josh Hazlewood and Tim David were some of the prominent buys of the franchise.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Virat Kohli during a practice session in IPL 2024. | Photo Credit: VIJAY SONEJI

The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction took take place on November 24 and 25 in Jeddah, with 577 players up for signing.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru signed a total of 22 players over two days of bidding. England all-rounder Liam Livingstone and Australians Josh Hazlewood and Tim David were some of the prominent buys.

Going into the auction, RCB retained three players, including Virat Kohli. Rajat Patidar and Yash Dayal were the other players retained by the Bengaluru-based franchise.

RCB squad for IPL 2025

Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Yash Dayal, Liam Livingstone (Rs. 8.75 crore), Phil Salt (Rs. 11.50 crore), Jitesh Sharma (Rs. 11 crore), Josh Hazlewood (Rs. 12.50 crore), Rasikh Dar (Rs. 6 crore), Suyash Sharma (Rs. 2.60 crore), Krunal Pandya (Rs. 5.75 crore), Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Rs. 10.75 crore), Swapnil Singh (Rs. 50 lakh), Tim David (Rs. 3 crore), Romario Shepherd (Rs. 1.50 crore), Nuwan Thushara (Rs. 1.60 crore), Manoj Bhandage (Rs. 30 lakh), Jacob Bethell (Rs. 2.60 crore), Devdutt Padikkal (Rs. 2 crore), Swastik Chhikara (Rs. 30 lakh), Lungi Ngidi (Rs. 1 crore), Abhinandan Singh (Rs. 30 lakh), Mohit Rathee (Rs. 30 lakh).

Who will captain RCB in IPL 2025?

RCB had released Faf du Plessis, its captain for the last three seasons, ahead of the auction. It was widely expected that the franchise would go for local boy KL Rahul in the auction. But since that didn’t transpire, the most likely option is that RCB will hand the captaincy back to Kohli.

The 36-year-old led RCB in 143 IPL matches from 2013 to 2021 before passing the captaincy to Faf du Plessis. However, RCB’s director of cricket, Mo Bobat, declined to comment on the team’s captaincy plans for IPL 2025. “Virat is a central figure and a senior member of the team, but we haven’t made any decisions about the captaincy yet. We will decide that later. He did send us some insightful text messages yesterday, offering his feedback,” Bobat said.

In the current squad, only Krunal Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar have had brief stints as IPL captains, which makes Kohli’s potential return to the role seem like a likely choice.