Former Australia skipper Michael Clarke urges the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to consider the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) captain Rajat Patidar for the T20 International squad, as he led the team for back-to-back triumphant seasons.
RCB is among the teams in the Indian Premier League (IPL) who has the reputation to secure some of the most exciting talents across the planet. The team had batters like Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, and Virat Kohli in the past. But the star power did not allow the team to claim their maiden IPL title. It is Rajat Patidar, under whose leadership the team transformed into a champion’s side.
A stand-out season for Rajat Patidar in IPL 2026
When RCB elected Rajat Patidar as the captain, there were some doubts as they had never captured the throne of the league before that. Even when Virat Kohli was the leader of the side, RCB did not achieve the desired outcomes. Patidar’s inclusion not only shifts the mentality of the team but also injects the belief into the player’s mind that they might have lacked for years.
Rajat Patidar recorded a stellar season with the Royal Challengers Bengaluru in 2026. He not only guided the team to glory for the second consecutive season, but also, as the middle-order batter of the team, scored 501 runs in 14 innings with an average of 41.75 and a strike rate of 192.69, which was enough to prove his mettle.
Michael Clarke praises Patidar’s leadership instincts
“Patidar had a stellar tournament again and is my player under the radar. Virat Kohli being in the team will always be the most spoken about player. But Patidar has done an exceptional job with the way he leads and gets the best out of all of his players. His own performance, batting in the tough middle order, has been fantastic,” Clarke said on the Beyond23 Cricket Podcast.
“Though he’s 31, there has to be a talk about him in the Indian T20 team. I don’t know if he will captain India, but he has leadership qualities. His middle-order batting has been phenomenal. Batting at No.4 is the hardest in T20s, and he comes in at the position and just explodes,” he added.
The former Australia captain asks the BCCI to pick the RCB skipper for the T20Is
Clarke reckoned that India has a bunch of talents in contention to be in the T20I team. But Rajat Patidar proved himself by winning back-to-back titles for RCB, so he deserves to be in the discussion for the national cricket team selection.
“India has a lot of talent at the moment, and a number of them are fighting to get into the Indian team from this IPL. But if you captain a team that goes on to win back-to-back IPL tournaments, the BCCI and the Indian selectors must be talking about him. His name must be in front of the queue in T20s, and he could even be looked at in ODI cricket,” said Clarke.
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