The Royal Challengers Bangalore announced unfortunate news regarding one of their star players, Rajat Patidar. Due to an Achilles heel injury, Patidar will miss out on the entire IPL 2023 season. Despite this setback, RCB remains optimistic about the team’s continuing success while wishing Patidar a speedy recovery and pledging their support during his time spent healing. As yet, management and coaches have not announced a replacement for Patidar but have faith in the team’s ability to prevail.
Here, we look at 3 players who can replace Rajat Patidar at RCB:
3) Rohan Kunnummal
Rohan Kunnummal has been exceptional in the domestic scene and looks to be the perfect replacement for Rajat Patidar. His exploits in the Vijay Hazare trophy were evidence of this, having scored a 28-ball 77 against Arunachal Pradesh and a captivating 134 against Goa at M.Chinnaswamy Stadium. He will surely be an asset to the RCB team, offering great support to already established players such as Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis, and Glenn Maxwell.
2) Saurabh Kumar
Saurabh Kumar, the orthodox left-arm spinner from Uttar Pradesh, could be a great replacement for Rajat Patidar. He has been in excellent form in the Ranji Trophy, with 44 wickets at 21.09 in 8 games and 5 five-wicket hauls in the 2019-20 season. In 2020-21, he took 70 wickets in 13 first-class matches by challenging the batters with his accuracy. He can provide a new dimension to the Royal Challengers Bangalore bowling attack and give them the luxury of having all angles covered.
1) Abhimanyu Easwaran
Abhimanyu Easwaran, the 27-year-old skipper of India A from Bengal, is a cricketer with an impressive record in all formats of the game. He has scored over 5000 runs in 78 First-class matches with an average of 45.33 and 3,000 List-A runs at an average of 46.24 in as many games. In T20 cricket, he has accumulated 728 runs in 27 matches with an average of 38.31. Topping off his impressive batting journey is a century and three half-centuries. Despite these remarkable achievements, Easwaran still needs to be selected to make his international debut for India. Although he is yet to play in the IPL, teams such as RCB could benefit from his presence at the top of the order. Easwaran would bring a lot of solidity to any side who looks to acquire his services.