Virat Kohli named RCB captain vs PBKS despite Faf du Plessis playing! Find out the details

Virat Kohli will once again captain Royal Challengers Bangalore for their IPL 2023 encounter against Punjab Kings in Mohali on Thursday. This is a new development but not an unprecedented sight. Two years after resigning as RCB’s captain, Kohli showed up to lead RCB at the toss, and a pleasing scene ensued. Although Sam Curran’s flip of the coin confirmed Shikhar Dhawan’s absence from the playing XI due to a niggle, the talk of the match before it even began was about Virat Kohli captaining RCB in place of Faf du Plessis.

Virat Kohli is captaining RCB in today's match.

— CricketMAN2 (@ImTanujSingh) April 20, 2023

The decision may have been made because Du Plessis continued to bat despite having his injured ribs taped during the previous game. Du Plessis will start for the RCB as they bat first, but as stated by Kohli, he will later be replaced by an impact player because it is thought that he hasn’t fully recovered from his injury.

Similar manoeuvres were recently used in the Mumbai Indians vs. Kolkata Knight Riders match, where Suryakumar Yadav captained MI and Rohit Sharma later entered the batting lineup as their Impact Player in the second innings.

At the toss Kohli said ”Faf will play as an impact player and switch with Vyshak if he isn’t able to field today. The pitch could become slow, so we would have batted first. Some scruff marks will benefit the bowlers as the game progresses. We haven’t yet in the tournament made the most of tight situations, concentrated on our own game, or taken one game at a time and there are no changes for us.”