Rajat Patidar shakes his head in amusement when probed about a tactical move he cherishes from the IPL, in a show with RCB Bold Diaries. “Aise kuch nahin,” he says, trying to shake off the question, before he fishes out favourite moment. “It was during the second league game against Punjab Kings. Prabhsimran Singh was taking the fast bowlers apart when I thought of bringing a spinner. He was hitting in a flow, and off-pace could disrupt it,” he explained his reasoning. He introduced left-arm spinner Krunal Pandya who immediately got the wicket.
The incident offered a peep into Patidar’s thought stream. His plans are not grand or elaborate, but simple, practical and designed on the move. “Half of the work (strategising) is done by our experienced support staff, I just have to take care of the on-field issues,” he says with a self-deprecatory smile that suggests that the weight of the role is not crushing him. And on Tuesday, he led to the promised land, delivering the franchise’s first ever trophy.
The man on the camera, sitting relaxed on a blazing bindi-red couch is the man of the field too. He has the gift of being visible yet invisible at the same time.He is laid back, yet serious, he is not chatty, but his words are measured and meaningful. On the field, he blends into his teammates, is not camera-conscious, rather escapes the camera without even the cameras realising it, is not ultra expressive, but has expressive eyes but an undemonstrative face. He is not the most vocal person of the field, there is a chorus of experienced hands for making the noise. He largely lets the bowlers choose their field, but conveys his opinions when he feels he has to.
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓 🏆🤩
The ROYAL CHALLENGERS BENGALURU have done it for the first time ❤ | | |
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL)
He rarely vents out his rage or angst. Even in the most anxious moment he keeps his poise, a trait that has won him praise from coaches and pundits. “There’s a calmness and a simplicity to Rajat,” extolls head coach Andy Flower. Staying grounded is the trait that pleased , RCB’s mentor and batting coach. “He has been the biggest eye-opener for me in life,” Karthik said on the second episode of RCB’s Journey to the Finale. “Because when people suddenly get a little bit of adulation, power, they tend to change… But with Rajat Patidar — what a guy. He has been exactly the same that he was before becoming the captain.”
Making him captain was not a desperate or whimsical decision. Flower and Co had watched his style of captaincy in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and detected ample traits in him to lead one of the most popular franchises in the league. “We really liked what we saw. He’s inherently a quiet guy, but observing him, he cares about the people around him. He cares about the people that he plays with, that he shares a dressing room with. And I think that’s a quality that means that he will instantly have respect and care from other people, and that, as a leader, those qualities are important in that people will follow you and get behind you. At the same time there is stubbornness and steeliness about him.”
The coaches that had moulded him swear on the qualities too. His childhood coach Ram Atre’s mind rewinds to the chilly winter mornings of Indore when Patidar would have readied the pitch before the coaches arrived. “We don’t have curators or groundsmen to make the pitch. Usually, the task fell on the freshers to keep the pitch ready before the practice session. But Rajat would do it even after he became a senior player of the club. He was a popular guy, friendly and always talking with a smile on his face. The junior players would flock to him for advice and he would patiently explain to them whatever they had asked for,” he remembers.
He had a fierce winning mentality but never pours his anger on his teammates even if they end up on the losing side. “Of course, he tells them where they have gone wrong, but never puts the blame on others. Rather, he will think deeply about where he has erred and work on it until he gets it corrected. He had the drive from the moment he joined the club. He was six or seven at that time.” he says, before rattling out another anecdote. He points to a six-year old kid who has come to attend the summer camp. “Rajat was shorter than him and when he first came here, he could not even clear the infield (which is roughly the size of a backyard) of the Dusshera Maidan ground. But he was patient, trained hard and in four-five weeks’ time started clearing it with ease,” he narrates.
His journey from being snubbed by RCB to captaining them to the final itself is a testament to his patience and a heart of granite. In the mega auction of 2022, the franchise did not retain him. He was disappointed, but he immediately hit the ground running to play local club cricket. “Each time he suffered a setback, he would make a comeback with double the energy. He wouldn’t show his frustration on the ground or during practice, but work quietly, far from everyone’s gaze,” says the coach. But as destiny had it, he was recalled towards the end of the season as an injury replacement. He was in two minds as he was certain that he would mostly bench-warm and his wedding was fixed too. In the end, the love for the game won, he postponed the wedding, rejoined RCB and latched onto the break with an unbeaten 112 against in the eliminator. An ankle injury kept him out of the next season, but RCB retained him, and two years later, he guided them to the final after nine years.
When RCB management sounded him about his new role last year, he didn’t get overwhelmed but told them that he had captained Madhya Pradesh much, so would go and captain them first before assuming charge of RCB. His heart pounded the first time he walked out for the toss, he told RCB Bold Diaries. “A lot of questions were passing through my head. Like what I would do with the toss, what if I lose it, about the questions they would ask me. But at the same time I was clear on what I had to do,” he admitted. Two months later, the once-ignored, soft-spoken captain, fulfilled the long unfulfilled dream of RCB with a dream-like narrative of his own.
