IPL 2022: Glenn Maxwell will be the likely heir to Virat Kohli – Daniel Vettori

Former Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Daniel Vettori reckons Glenn Maxwell will be the likely heir to Virat Kohli.

RCB has decided to retain Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, and Mohammad Siraj. Vettori feels a franchise tries to retain players, from which they could name a new leader.

As Kohli has decided to relinquish his captaincy duties while AB de Villiers has decided to hang his boots from all forms of the game, Glenn Maxwell will be the front runner to take the captaincy role for the Bangalore-based franchise.

Maxwell was finally able to prove his mettle in the IPL as he amassed 513 runs in 14 innings for RCB at an impressive average of 42.75 and a whirlwind strike rate of 144.10.

Daniel Vettori said while talking to ESPN Cricinfo, “Look, I think Maxwell will be the likely heir to Kohli. He obviously produced [results] in this last year and he was an exceptional player for them. He has the experience of captaining the Melbourne Stars… We talked about most teams wanting to find a captain in their retained players… It has happened too often that teams know they’ve got a captain, they know they can lock that away and they don’t have to find one in the auction which can cloud your thinking at times.”

“I do believe Maxwell will be named captain. It could be [for] just one season, to see how it goes but it’s a pretty good stop-gap measure as they build to the future.”

Meanwhile, RCB didn’t retain leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal and Harshal Patel. Chahal is RCB’s leading wicket-taker in the IPL while Patel had a magnificent 2021 edition for the team as he scalped 32 wickets and thus bagged the Purple cap as well as the MVP of the season. However, Vettori added that RCB has retained three very good players.

“Obviously, you think Chahal would have stayed or RCB would have wanted him but the thing we have to understand is that players want to go to the mega auction, be available to the two new teams… RCB has got three very good players. They’ve got two of the top T20 batsmen in world cricket.”

“Maxwell coming off a great year, potentially being captain of RCB and then one of the best Indian domestic bowlers. It’s a very good three. I am sure they would have loved to have Chahal there, or Harshal Patel or Devdutt Padikkal but those 3 players probably wanted to try their hand at the auction.”

RCB will enter IPL 2022 mega auction with a purse value of INR 57 crores.