Ahmedabad, June 4 (IANS) Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) head coach Andy Flower was all praise for captain Rajat Patidar for calmness in carrying out the “tricky job” of captaining RCB and leading the team to their maiden IPL title.

This was the first time Patidar was leading an IPL team while his previous leadership experience was leading Madhya Pradesh to the final of the 2024/25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. On his first rodeo as the franchise’s skipper, he ended RCB’s long wait of 18 years to get their hands on the trophy by beating Punjab Kings (PBKS) by six runs in the title clash.

“One of the most impressive things about what Rajat has done this year is, as an inexperienced captain, that he hasn’t been affected by it. I don’t think it has affected his batting because I’ve watched him really closely as a character, and he is still the lovely, gentle, polite Rajat Patidar that we knew last year. He hasn’t changed at all in that regard,” Flower said in a post-match press conference.

“Captaining RCB is a really tricky job. If I cast my mind back to how poorly I captained when I was his age, I’ve got tremendous respect for how he’s held himself with all that scrutiny and captained some big players. You can’t underestimate the calmness he showed in leading some really big players, a really big franchise, making good decisions out there in the middle under the pressure that RCB players play under. So I’ve got tons of respect for him. I’m really proud of the way that he’s carried himself, and he’s been crucial to us doing well,” he added.

RCB set a target of 191 for PBKS to win, which initially seemed a total under par, especially when PBKS managed to reach 70 at the end of the 8th over and seemed totally in control. But, an excellent catch by Phil Salt on the bowling of Josh Hazlewood near the backward-square-leg boundary sent Priyansh back in the fifth over, which Flower feels was the turning pint in the match.

“That was an outstanding catch, wasn’t it?. I thought it was a perfect example of someone holding his nerve under pressure. It took a while to get to him, he knew that he was moving towards the boundary, and to stay that calm under that sort of pressure in a final to get our first wicket was an amazing piece of fielding from him, and also just holding his nerve,” he said

Salt returned to Ahmedabad early Tuesday norning for the summit clash. He wasn’t a part of the RCB training session on the eve of the contest, with the news of him flying home to accompany his partner for the birth of their first child surfacing.

“He only got back from England at 3 o’clock this morning, and he’s been an outstanding batter and fielder for us throughout the season. He has taken a couple of catches like that through the season, he works really hard at it. I think he had actually preferred to keep wicket, but he was outstanding, and a turning point, obviously,” Flower added.

–IANS

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