A replacement player, who hasn’t even played a T20 International, becomes IPL-winning captain

By Samira Vishwas On Mar 28, 2026

This was an even more historic moment for captain Rajat Patidar because he achieved something which even some other big names could not achieve while captaining the team. However, with all this, there is more responsibility on them for the 2026 season as RCB are now the defending champions.

Rajat Patidar, on par with Rohit Sharma, won the IPL trophy after captaining the team in just 13 matches. Those who have taken more matches to win the IPL trophy: Hardik Pandya and Shane Warne (15 matches), Adam Gilchrist (24), David Warner (33), MS Dhoni (43), Gautam Gambhir (47) and Shreyas Iyer (70). He became the 6th Indian and 9th captain overall to win the IPL trophy.

Another amazing record that no one pays attention to: Shane Warne and Rajat Patidar are the only two captains who never played T20 International matches for their country but won the IPL title as captain. This cricketer from Madhya Pradesh still has a chance to remove his name from this record.

Shane Warne actually came to play IPL after retiring from international cricket. Many experts consider him to be one of the list of unfortunate players who could not become the captain of their country’s team nor play T20 International. Another coincidence is that both Warne and Rajat won the title in their very first season as IPL captain. Warne could not add another IPL title to his record but Rajat Patidar can change this record too.

So, in this way Rajat is the first Indian cricketer to win the IPL title as captain without playing any T20 International for Team India. This right-handed batsman has played 3 Tests and 1 ODI match so far. His IPL story is very interesting.

Before IPL 2021, RCB had included Rajat Patidar in the team but the start was not very good. Only 71 runs in 4 matches in the season and the result was that he was released after the season. In the auction of 2022 season, the situation became such that it remained ‘unsold’. None of the 10 teams showed any interest in this 29-year-old batsman. However, fate had written something else.

Midway through the season, RCB’s Lavneet Sisodia suffered an injury and this created a vacancy in the team. The team called Rajat on a contract of Rs 20 lakh for the remaining season. An unsold player, he was unnoticed meaning he had nothing to lose. So without any delay he joined the RCB team.

This replacement player was number 3 in the list of highest runs scored for the team at the end of the season (333 runs at 152.75 strike rate). In this, he was in the news for scoring 112* off 54 balls in the eliminator against Lucknow Super Giants at Eden Gardens. This was the ‘turning point’ of his career and he directly got a place in the ODI team India for the series against South Africa. After this, he soon made his Test debut against England in Visakhapatnam.

After all this, I just had to cement my place in the team. The start was from 2023 season but injury did not allow him to play the entire season. Made a tremendous comeback in the 2024 season (395 runs in 13 innings). This replacement player, who joined the team for Rs 20 lakh in 2022, was retained by RCB for Rs 11 crore before the mega auction. When Faf du Plessis left the franchise, Rajat was also made the captain for the 2025 season (RCB’s fourth Indian and eighth captain overall). The team did not regret its decision.

On the other hand, IPL 2025 was the season for RCB to prove its capability. Their women’s team had won the WPL title in 2024, ending this team’s drought of never winning a title and now the senior players of the men’s team were facing the challenge of matching them. In such a situation, RCB made such a strong comeback that it became the first team in IPL to win all its ‘away’ matches. He was playing like a champion. Rajat scored 312 runs in 15 matches which included two 50s against CSK and MI. Only Virat Kohli (657) and Phil Salt (403) scored more runs than him in the season. In this way, a replacement player led RCB to its first IPL title after 18 years.

Virat Kohli praised Rajat very much and said, ‘What a tremendous change has happened. The journey from being a replacement player in the team due to injury to being the captain who won the IPL was amazing. This is really a tremendous change. He also gifted one of his bats to Rajat, which the RCB captain kissed and kept with him.

He is so dedicated to cricket that he has made a lot of sacrifices in his personal life, especially his marriage. Rajat was so busy with cricket that he repeatedly postponed his marriage with Gunjan. Although unlike other wives, Gunjan is rarely seen in the stands, but she was present with Rajat when he celebrated with the IPL trophy.