Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) director Mo Bobat revealed how the franchise went about appointing Rajat Patidar as captain ahead of the 2025 IPL season. The 32-year-old pulled off the seemingly improbable, leading RCB to their maiden IPL title in his first season as captain this year.Patidar was with the franchise from his debut IPL season in 2021 and enjoyed his best run with the bat in IPL 2024. The right-hander scored 395 runs at an average of over 30 and a strike rate of 177.13 in 15 games last year.In an interview with Cricbuzz, Bobat detailed RCB's thinking before making Patidar the captain for IPL 2025, saying:"So we were thinking about an Indian captain. I also didn't want to put ourselves in a position where we go into the auction fixed on a person to buy for captaincy. Because I think that's quite dangerous because you can't control what you get at an auction. You might decide you want Rishabh Pant, and then you realise that someone is prepared to pay a lot more money than you, and you're in trouble."He continued:The options we went into the auction with was we could obviously buy back Faf if we wanted to have continuity. That was one option. Another option could be that we could go back to Virat. He's captained before, one of the best leaders that India's ever had. I'm pretty sure if we asked him to do it, he would have gone, 'yeah, let's give this a go' because he cares so much about the franchise.Patidar did not enjoy the best season with the bat in IPL 2025, finishing with 312 runs at an average of 24 and a strike rate of 143.77 in 15 outings. However, under him, RCB finished second on the points table with nine wins in 14 matches and defeated the Punjab Kings (PBKS) in Qualifier 1 and the final to clinch their maiden IPL title."He said, yes, he does like the idea of leadership and captaincy" - Mo Bobat on Rajat PatidarMo Bobat further revealed his conversations with Rajat Patidar during the 2024 IPL season around the latter's captaincy aspirations. RCB's director, by his own admission, insisted on Patidar gaining captaincy experience before the 2025 IPL campaign.The stars aligned perfectly for the 32-year-old as he led Madhya Pradesh in the 2024-25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT)."I spoke to him when we were in Dharamsala. I think he was a little bit surprised because he thought we might just talk about his batting or something. I remember asking him whether he had any aspirations to captain or lead, and he was probably a little bit surprised to hear the question, but he said, yes, he does like the idea of leadership and captaincy," said Bobat (via the aforementioned source).He continued:"We talked about whether he'd had any experience of it. I did say: 'Look, for you to even be an option or even to be one of our senior leader four players, it'd be good if you did some captaincy. So, go to your seniors, see if they would be prepared to make you captain, even if it's just for the white-ball stuff - the Mushtaq Ali or the Vijay Hazare trophy. So, he spoke to Chandu [Pandit], his coach at MP, and thankfully for us they allowed him to captain the team."Under Patidar's captaincy, Madhya Pradesh finished as runners-up in the 2024-25 SMAT with the skipper scoring 428 runs at an average of 61.14 and a strike rate of over 186 in 10 matches.