Faf du Plessis has now officially been appointed as the skipper of the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for the upcoming 15th edition of the tournament scheduled to be commencing on March 26. RCB finalized the new captain of the franchise on Saturday during the RCB Unbox event in Bengaluru. Du Plessis, who until last year represented Chennai Super Kings (CSK), was picked up by RCB for a hefty amount of ₹7 crores at the IPL mega auction last month.
The announcement has surely put some rest on a lot of speculations that Virat Kohli, who stepped down as RCB’s captain at the end of last season, will be coming back to lead the team. Du Plessis leaves behind Australian Glenn Maxwell and India’s Dinesh Karthik in the race, both of whom were strong candidates to become the captain of the team.
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While Maxwell and Karthik are experienced enough, it was probably du Plessis’ experience of leading the South African team that gave him the nod ahead of the other two.
Faf du Plessis led South Africa in 115 international matches out of which the country emerged victorious 81 times. South Africa won 25 of the 40 T20Is played under his captaincy. In February of 2020, du Plessis gave up South Africa’s captaincy across formats but RCB saw plenty of value in him to give him charge of a revamped side.
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Here is the press conference conducted by the RCB to announce their new skipper in IPL 2022:
Faf Du Plessis took over South Africa’s Test captaincy in 2016 which extended to all formats a year later. Lately, he has not been considered for the South African team, even missing out on a place in the squad for the T20 World Cup in 2021. This was after du Plessis had amassed 633 runs in IPL 2021, just two behind the Orange Cap winner Ruturaj Gaikwad. In fact, du Plessis had been in fine nick for CSK the last couple of seasons, scoring over 1000 runs in IPL 2020 and 2021 combined.
