These are still early days in the IPL but Rajat Patidar has taken to captaincy like duck to water. Mo Bobat, Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s director of cricket, is no doubt mighty impressed.

“The main thing you want to see is if they continue to let their personality come through and I think he has done that very well,” Bobat said ahead of Wednesday’s game against Gujarat Titans. “He has been very calm, inwardly and outwardly, and rarely takes a backward step.

“We saw that with his batting, especially against CSK. Every time we lost a wicket, he kept throwing punches. And he has coped with everything else that comes with captaincy also pretty well. At the minute, he has been excellent,” the Brit added.

READ | High-flying Royal Challengers Bengaluru takes on Gujarat Titans in first home clash of season

For Titans, speedster Prasidh Krishna will be returning to the familiar environment of the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium where he plays most of his domestic cricket as a Karnataka player. The IPL 2025 is also his first since the 2022 edition, plagued as he was by multiple injuries.

“As much as I tried telling myself that it’s just another tournament and game, I did feel that I was coming in after a few years of not having played a lot of T20 cricket,” Prasidh said.

“The pace of the game has changed – 2022 to 2025. But it keeps moving forward and you have keep up. And since I have been playing some amount of cricket now, the body is letting me do what I want to do.”