Endrick has pointed to Vinicius Junior's success as a reason to stay at Real Madrid despite pressure from the club and his Brazil coach to go on loan.
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The batter has been with RCB since 2021, and has grown into one of their key players
Ashish Pant13-Feb-202511:44
Will RCB captaincy affect Patidar’s batting?
Rajat Patidar has been appointed captain of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for IPL 2025, which begins around March 21. The development was contrary to wide speculation that Virat Kohli would lead RCB again after they did not retain Faf du Plessis, their captain from 2022 to 2024, before the mega auction.RCB made the announcement in Bengaluru on Thursday at an event attended by team director Mo Bobat, head coach Andy Flower, and Patidar. He is the eighth captain for RCB and has played three seasons for the franchise since joining them in 2021 and has grown into one of their key batters, scoring 799 runs in 28 matches at a strike rate of 158.85.”I could speak for quite a long time about Rajat, but I’ve settled on three main things that I thought might be interesting to share,” Flower said. “The first one is there’s a calmness and a simplicity to Rajat that I think will stand him in really good stead as a leader and a captain, particularly in the IPL. As we know, the IPL is one of the premier competitions in the world and there’s pressures involved in that, and I think the calm, simple demeanour that inherently lives within Rajat is going to serve him really well in the hurly-burly of that tournament.Related
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IPL begins March 21 weekend; WPL to start from February 7
“And his decision-making will be tested like all of ours is. But I think these qualities will stand him in really good stead. We watched Rajat very closely as he captained Madhya Pradesh in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament and we really liked what we saw around those qualities.”The second thing I’d say about him, he’s inherently quite a quiet guy, but observing him, he cares about the people around him, he cares about the people that he plays with, that he shares a dressing room with. And I think that’s a quality that means that he will instantly have the respect and care from other people. As a leader, those qualities are important. In that people will follow you and get behind you.”And then the third thing that stands out for me about him is that he’s got a stubbornness and a strength and a steeliness about him. I’ve seen it myself when I’m trying to coach him in the nets and he won’t listen to me, but you see it in the way that he plays. You see the bravery with which he takes on the game and I think that quality within him will be really important for him through the ups and downs, the inevitable ups and downs that come along with playing in the IPL, and now stepping up another gear into leading a big franchise in the IPL.”Bobat confirmed that Kohli was an option the team management had thought about.”With our retentions, it’s probably worth noting that we obviously retained three players, three Indians, and of those three, it’s worth saying that both Virat and Rajat were obviously credible captaincy options for us going into the auction,” he said. “And then at the auction itself, we spent quite a lot of time thinking about leadership characteristics. We didn’t necessarily want to go into the auction and have our heart set on a captain because we felt that was quite a dangerous approach and then you end up probably overvaluing somebody potentially.”Rajat Patidar has been a part of RCB for the past three IPL seasons•AFP/Getty Images
In a video released by RCB, Kohli congratulated Patidar on the appointment, emphasising that he has earned the right to be in this position.”The way you have grown in this franchise and the way you have performed, you have really made a place in the hearts of all the fans of RCB all over India and they get really excited to watch you play,” Kohli said. “I’ve seen Rajat evolve in the last couple of years as a player. He has got the chance to play for India. His game has improved many levels in the last couple of years.”The way he has led his state team as well and the responsibility that he’s taken and has shown everyone that he has what it takes to lead this amazing franchise and I just wish him all the very best and I would request all the fans to show him absolute support, get right behind him and know that he will always and always do what’s best for the team, what’s best for this franchise.”Discussions within the group confirmed to the coaches that Patidar was the right choice, Bobat said.”We spent some time discussing things with the likes of DK [Dinesh Karthik, the batting coach], who’s obviously a really important part of our management team now. [We] had multiple conversations with Virat, even had some discussions with Rajat and I say discussions, they probably felt a little bit more like interviews for Rajat. But Andy and I spent some time talking to Rajat about his captaincy aspirations and what struck us was that he was very determined and ambitious about leadership and captaincy and he really wanted to do this and that was really important for us to understand and feel.”Bobat also said that they wanted an Indian captain to lead RCB this time around.”Andy and I felt quite blessed that we had quite a few to choose from,” he said. “Whether we went Indian or overseas was an important discussion point for us. We felt quite strongly that an Indian captain was preferable.”That’s nothing against any overseas options, but we were really keen on an Indian option primarily because it’s an Indian competition on Indian pitches against predominantly Indian players. So somebody who’s got that local knowledge and insight is really, really helpful for us.”While this will be 31-year-old Patidar’s first captaincy stint in the IPL, he has captained MP in the 2024-25 season of the 20-over Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (where they finished runners-up) and the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy. Those tournaments were his first full-time assignments as captain in domestic cricket.”I had a conversation with Mo last year,” Patidar said. “I told him before getting the captaincy of RCB, I want to captain a state team. When they told me about this, that it could be between Virat and Rajat, I was happy. I can’t express my reaction.ESPNcricinfo Ltd
“I really feel good right now. If I talk about my way of captaincy, I’m not that much expressive, but at the same time, I’m aware of the situation of the matches. So I think for me it’s important to back my players and stand with them and give the sort of involvement where they feel relaxed and confident. So yeah, I’m lucky that I am surrounded by one of the best people in the team and we have a group of leaders as well where their experience and ideas will definitely help in my new leadership role and growth as an individual also.”Patidar was the second-highest run-scorer in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with 428 runs in nine innings at an average of 61.14 and strike rate of 186.08. In the Vijay Hazare Trophy, he made 226 runs at an average of 56.50 and strike rate of 107.10.RCB have not won the IPL title yet, though they have been finalists three times, the last of which was in 2016. They have made the playoffs in four of the last five seasons, including in 2024, when they won their last six league matches to get into the top four but then lost the Eliminator.With RCB appointing Patidar, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Delhi Capitals (DC) are the only teams yet to name their captains for the upcoming season. Shreyas Iyer, KKR’s captain last year, will lead Punjab Kings (PBKS) this year, while the former DC captain Rishabh Pant is now leading Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).
In-form captain has team-mates running out of superlatives and home crowd loving every moment
Andrew Miller14-Aug-20216:00
Root or KP – England’s greatest batsman?
We cannot keep asking more of our star players. That has been the message from the ECB high command in recent months – including on the eve of this Test, when Tom Harrison, the chief executive, insisted the board were committed to a “people first” policy, for the remainder of England’s summer campaign and, most significantly, on into this winter’s Ashes.”It’s no longer acceptable to go ‘once more unto the breach dear friends’,” Harrison said, with Covid restrictions foremost in his thoughts, but with England’s insane itinerary right up there at the top of everyone else’s. For despite such stirring rhetoric, there really is no other way. The reality for England’s cricketers, in the sport’s post-pandemic panic, is that every day is Groundhog Day, every next-biggest occasion ever is just another day on the treadmill.But just as Bill Murray discovered while hanging out in Punxsutawney, some days can still be better than others if you can find it within you to seize the moment. And when you’ve ploughed on for as long as Joe Root has, willing yourself to perform in empty echoing stadiums for months of bubbled-up existence, then to emerge into a sunlight Saturday of a Lord’s Test, in front of a packed and enraptured crowd, with your own family looking on from their box in the Grandstand … well, there couldn’t really be a more perfect stage for a masterpiece.Related
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Root has had plenty reason to wave his bat in triumph in the course of his extraordinary 2021. But few milestone moments have dripped with more glee than his jab into the covers off Jasprit Bumrah, armed with the second new ball on Saturday afternoon. He scampered the single then veered abruptly towards his family in the stands, punching the air with a delirium that only the most devout can know.For Root isn’t just going to the well for England, time and time again. He’s living in the well. He’s so immersed in the day-to-day pressures of carrying the fortunes of his team that he’s become at one with his surroundings, at peace with the pressure of treading water for hours at an end, knowing that if he dares to stop swimming, everyone is liable to sink. Today he soared, and it was glorious.”Joe and I, when we were walking out, we were just smiling at each other,” Jonny Bairstow said at the close, after an innings of 57 that ended up being less than a third of his captain’s tally, but is still, remarkably, the only other half-century to have come from one of his team-mates this series.”How good is it to walk out on a Saturday at Lord’s, with one of your best mates?” Bairstow added. “That’s exactly what it was. Our partnership was about having fun while we were out there, and to have a full crowd back at Lord’s, with the new stand, with family and friends, was really special. That Lord’s buzz, or hum, or however you want to phrase it, was most definitely back.”Mohammed Siraj congratulates Joe Root on his unbeaten 180•Getty ImagesMuch like James Anderson’s first-innings five-for, hindsight confers an inevitability on Root’s magnificence that circumstance really shouldn’t allow. It was a point put to him in the lead-up to this match – as he opted once again to do his captain’s media duties two days out from the Test, in a bid to cocoon his game-brain and filter out the noise for an extra 24 hours.”How are you Joe?” was the gist of the final question, almost as an afterthought at the end of a 20-minute interrogation, featuring topics including the return of Moeen Ali and the wider failings of a team that had been outplayed in each of their first three Tests of the summer, the longest they’d been made to wait for a home victory since their struggles against Sri Lanka and India back in 2014.He insisted he was fine – but then so too, you suspect, did Ben Stokes last month, when he fielded that SOS after the white-ball Covid outbreak, and broke off his recuperation to lead out a squad of reserves. Today, however, Root offered up the most ringing affirmative he could muster, an innings so serene it was as though the solitude of his supremacy had bought even his classically tailored game an extra yard of response time.Soft hands, calm choices, unhurried strokeplay – at least until his white-ball savvy surged to the fore as Anderson got peppered in the day’s frantic closing moments. He barely presented a straight bat through the V at any stage of his innings, relying instead on nudges off his legs for the balls that veered too straight, and needle-threading judgement on his favoured off-side, which made a mockery at times of Virat Kohli’s attempts to bung up his options with a trio of short covers and two slips to check his dab to third man.And in keeping with the need to think happy thoughts to haul England through this summer’s predicament, Root’s running between the wickets was able to step up an extra notch once he had linked up with sidekicks in whom he could fully trust – Bairstow in the first instance, but Jos Buttler and Moeen Ali too, a trio whose white-ball world-beating counts for more than perhaps it ought to in the cramped confines of this itinerary. In the end Bairstow was bested by the short ball – a method he cannot really plan for when ruling the roost in one-day cricket – while Buttler and Moeen made just 50 runs between them. But they between scratched out half-century stands, and gave Root the ballast he needed to drag the match towards parity.None of this is sustainable. It’s barely even credible – much as in 2018, when India’s 4-1 losing margin was a travesty, it beggars belief that they are not already 1-0 up from Trent Bridge, and pushing for a second. But like a high-wire act over Niagara Falls, Root’s progress is both utterly compelling, and so inexorable, you start to believe he might just get to the other side without looking down.
“I run out of superlatives, to be honest”Jonny Bairstow marvels at the feats of his captain
For his achievements in 2021 are already sensational. In the course of this innings, Root first skittered past Graham Gooch’s former England record of 8900 Test runs, then pushed on past 9000 too, and at a younger age than anyone bar the one Englishman ahead of him in the run-charts, Alastair Cook.By the time he’d run out of partners on 180 not out, Root’s tally for the year was close to double that of any other batter in world cricket – 1244 to Rohit Sharma’s mid-match tally of 669 – and while England’s overloaded itinerary is a contributory factor, the comparison with his peers is even more revealing.By the end of England’s innings, Root had scored almost four times as many runs in 2021 as his next most prolific team-mate, Rory Burns (353), and more runs than the rest of England’s top six in this match combined.He’s made five of their six centuries this year, including each of their four 150-plus scores, and is only one shy of England’s all-time record of six in a calendar year. And, as if further proof was needed of the burden he has carried for his side, in this match he even had to see off two hat-trick balls in the same innings. His first ball came in the wake of Haseeb Hameed’s golden duck on Friday; and his 277th came 152 runs later, as Ishant Sharma started a new over, fresh from delivering Sam Curran his own first-baller.”I run out of superlatives, to be honest,” Bairstow said at the close. “He means a heck of a lot [to the team], like he does to English cricket.”To go into second place in the leading run-scorers in the history of the English game is very special, to pass 9000 Test runs in this game is extremely special, to score another 180 not out at Lord’s is great, isn’t it, and to see him in the form that he is, playing the way he is, it’s awesome to be out there with him, putting on partnerships with him, and enjoying every single moment of it.”And as a consequence, he’s on the brink of his masterpiece now. A year to stand comparison with any of the greats that have gone before. Richards in 1976, Ponting in 2005… even the most prolific of them all, Mohammad Yousuf, whose 1788 runs in his annus mirablis in 2006 included nine centuries in 19 innings. That’s as many as Root himself has now played, but he’s still got 12 more scheduled before the New Year. As might have been mentioned once or twice, England’s itinerary really is something else.But more immediately, Root’s got the chance to prove a point about his contemporary credentials. The mutterings in recent seasons were that he had slipped out of the fabled “Fab Four” of modern batting – his century at Trent Bridge last week had been his first on home soil since India’s last tour in 2018, notwithstanding the fact that his role in England’s World Cup triumph had caused a wavering in his Test focus.But now it’s Kohli who’s feeling the heat for his own relative dip in standards. In consecutive series against England in 2016-17 and 2018, he amassed the small matter of 655 runs at 109.16, and 593 at 59.30. Likewise, Steve Smith racked up 687 runs at 137.40 in Australia’s 4-0 rout in their last home Ashes in 2017-18; then followed that up with 774 more at 110.57.Root, right at this moment, has 353 runs at 176.50, with potentially seven more innings to come. The same, in fact, as his next most prolific colleague for the entire year. It may not be fair to expect Root to keep giving more to the cause. But when you’re in a zone quite like this, who would ever wish it to end?
Sunderland were always going to face challenges venturing up to the Premier League, but the Black Cats will find their journey up to the big time to be even more unnerving now that Jobe Bellingham has left the club.
Bellingham has followed in his esteemed brother’s footsteps and joined German behemoth Borussia Dortmund, leaving Regis Le Bris with a lot of work to do this summer to plug his noticeable gap.
The Wearside underdogs could look to bring in an entertaining EFL star as a replacement for the skilful 19-year-old.
As per a new report by the Daily Mail, Sunderland are eyeing up a potential swoop for Leeds United outcast Sam Greenwood to enhance their attacking options.
Whilst he has struggled for large patches of his Elland Road career, Greenwood has shone away from West Yorkshire on loan with Preston North End and Middlesbrough in the Championship, with Sunderland now keen on winning his services.
Leicester City are also in the race to land the 23-year-old ahead of the Foxes heading back to the second tier, but the Black Cats’ newly obtained Premier League status – on top of the fact Greenwood actually hails from Sunderland – should surely give them a favourable advantage.
Before heading to Leeds, he was actually on the books of the Sunderland and Arsenal academies.
There would be a lot of pressure on Greenwood’s shoulders to come in and fill the void left behind by Bellingham, but it’s clear from his flashes of excellence in the EFL’s elite league that he’s deserving of some more game time in the top-flight, away from being a reserve face at Daniel Farke’s outfit.
After all, much like Bellingham caught the eye with classy displays galore at the Stadium of Light, Greenwood has consistently entertained fans in the EFL when moved out on loan from Leeds.
Amazingly, the 23-year-old even amassed more goals last season in the Championship than Bellingham, with five goals collected come the end of his stay at Deepdale, compared to his now Dortmund counterpart’s four.
By the end of his loan stint in Lancashire, Greenwood scored seven strikes in total from 45 clashes, with this tally just beating his overall Boro count, which stood at five. Alongside that, he also has six Championship assists next to his name, with a chance for him to shine in the level above perhaps coming soon with Le Bris and Co.
Away from offering the same firepower as Bellingham, the “unbelievable” attacker – as Farke once described him – is also similar to the Bundesliga-bound midfielder in offering lots of versatility, with the ex-Arsenal youth starlet capable of playing in a whole host of positions like Bellingham, away from simply lining up as a number ten.
|
Greenwood’s G/A career numbers by position |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Position played |
Games |
Goals |
Assists |
|
CF |
48 |
20 |
3 |
|
AM |
37 |
9 |
9 |
|
RW |
19 |
9 |
3 |
|
LM |
17 |
4 |
2 |
|
SS |
15 |
9 |
4 |
|
LW |
13 |
2 |
2 |
|
CM |
11 |
1 |
1 |
|
DM |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
Sourced by Transfermarkt |
|||
Greenwood actually boasts more career goals and assists lining up as a centre-forward with the 23-year-old potentially offering Le Bris another striker presence, therefore, away from the Frenchman solely depending on Wilson Isidor.
But, he can also line up as a winger and as a central figure, much like Bellingham, with everything pointing in the direction that this could be a smart move for Sunderland to make to try and patch over their star man’s exit.
Greenwood even has a goal and four assists next to his name when utilised sparingly in the Premier League by the Whites, meaning he could really kick on under Le Bris’ guidance if given plenty of action in the wake of Bellingham’s sad departure.
He'd be better than Tanganga: Sunderland interested in signing £8m defender
Sunderland could now swoop in for this defensive target over solely pursuing a move for Japhet Tanganga.
By
Kelan Sarson
Jun 16, 2025