Former Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) all-rounder Moeen Ali recently revealed that the club considered replacing Virat Kohli as captain in 2019. Moeen reported that Parthiv Patel was on the verge of being named RCB captain during Gary Kirsten’s coaching tenure.
Kohli, one of RCB’s most recognised leaders, succeeded Daniel Vettori as captain in 2013 and will continue to do so until 2021. Despite his strong batting statistics, RCB struggled under his leadership, particularly between 2017 and 2019, placing last in two of those three seasons. The bad seasons followed RCB’s sad defeat in the 2016 final. Ali, who was part of the RCB setup from 2018 to 2020, said that discussions regarding replacing Kohli were serious. He stated that Parthiv was being strongly considered for the post.
“Yes, I believe he was. I’m quite sure he was. Parthiv was in position to become captain in Gary Kirsten’s final year–after the first year, I suppose. He had a fantastic cricketing mind. That was the conversation at the moment.
I’m not sure what occurred or why that didn’t happen, but I’m sure he was seriously considered for the job.” Moeen Ali
Despite internal discussions, the change in the captaincy never came to being. Kohli retained the captaincy and led the side until 2021, when he voluntarily stepped down citing workload concerns. Kohli led RCB to the playoffs in 2020 and continued to top the run-scoring charts. In 2021, Kohli announced his decision to give up captaincy, and South African veteran Faf du Plessis took over in the subsequent seasons.
RCB finally broke their title drought in 2025 under the leadership of Rajat Patidar. Kohli played a big role with the bat, scoring 657 runs in 15 matches. Meanwhile, Parthiv, who was with RCB till 2019, did not play in the IPL thereafter.
India
