Mo Bobat, the director of cricket of Royal Challengers Bengaluru, expressed amazement at Virat Kohli’s “ridiculous” record over the course of 18 years, saying that the thought tank should at least provide a championship-winning team for the superstar who has contributed his youth and prime to the IPL team.
After an 18-year wait, RCB won their first title last season, making them the reigning champions going into the 2026 IPL edition.
“Virat Kohli, obviously, I think he’ll forever be the icon and the hero of this team. I don’t think that’s going to go away, and he deserves that. His track record is incredible. I remember at one point last season seeing his stats when he got to however many runs it was — close to 9,000 runs — 18 years wearing just one shirt. That’s 500 runs a season. It’s actually ridiculous. For seven years or something like that, some players would be happy with a 500-run season. He averages 500 runs a season for 18 years. It’s actually ridiculous. So, you can’t ignore that,” speaking about Kohli’s stature within the franchise, Bobat said on RCB Podcast.
Since 2008, Kohli has been the mainstay of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru, becoming the top scorer in the IPL with almost 9,000 runs for a single team, including eight hundreds. He achieved a record of 973 runs in a single season in 2016, which was his most outstanding performance.
On building a champion team around Kohli, Bobat said, “The best thing Andy and I can do for him is give him a championship winning team. And he’s certainly at the stage of that career where he wants to keep winning things. So it didn’t take much buy-in from someone like him. He wants good players around him because he wants to win. He’s a winner.”
Rajat Patidar, who succeeded Faf du Plessis as captain prior to the commencement of IPL 2025, led RCB to victory.
Bobat explained the reasoning behind the leadership call as follows: “We spent a lot of time thinking about that captaincy decision. I don’t mind saying in my career there aren’t that many decisions that I’ve thought about as long and as deeply as that one. And (the) thinking started in the season before.
“We were very blessed to have someone like Faf (du Plessis) as our captain. Everybody knows what a champion person Faf is. He was still a player doing the business at that stage as well. We could have easily just rolled him over and continued with Faf, having built a strong connection and relationship and trust with him.
“But sport is pretty ruthless. You’ve got to look at the reality of his age and stage. And again, I mentioned earlier, the big auction gave us a chance to do a bit of a reset. We felt like (having) an Indian captain was really important. It’s an Indian competition, so having an Indian captain I think is really important.”
Bobat stated that RCB is aiming for back-to-back titles in reference to the forthcoming season.
“We’re not defending champions. We’re not defending anything. We might be current champions, but I don’t want us to have a mindset of us defending anything. We’re attacking. We’re chasing something else. We’re chasing back to back wins.”
When the topic of long-term leadership vision came up, Bobat implied that Patidar would likely remain captain in the near future and mentioned that he and head coach Andy Flower had gained the trust of previous RCB captain Kohli.
“Andy and I met him (Kohli) in London not long after the 2024 season and talked about that. He’s always ready to step forward and lead. He doesn’t need a second invitation.
“But we spoke at that stage about how this decision is not just about us three as people. It’s about RCB more broadly as a franchise. Its leadership maybe even beyond us. We might not be here and Rajat might be continuing as captain. So it’s a moment in time where we have to take that responsibility quite seriously.”
“The easy thing would have been to say, ‘Virat, do you mind filling in and doing captaincy?’ But then you’re just kicking a decision down the road. At some point we can’t be dependent on Virat all the time. Virat’s a bright guy. He got it really quickly. He said, ‘Let’s think about some of these other individuals. But if you need someone, then obviously I can do it’.”
