RCB announce Faf du Plessis as skipper: A look at his captaincy record

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on Saturday announced former South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis as the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise’s captain for the 2022 season. Du Plessis will replace Virat Kohli, who in September 2021 quit the RCB captaincy. 

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With his appointment, du Pessis became the seventh cricketer to captain the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Rahul Dravid, Kevin Pietersen, Anil Kumble, Daniel Vettori, Kohli and Shane Watson led the team previously. Among the former captains, Kohli has captained the side in most matches – 140 matches with 64 wins, 69 losses, three ties and four no results, with a win percentage of 48.16.

Under Faf du Plessis RCB, who are yet to win the IPL, will look for their maiden title in the upcoming season.

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Captaincy record

Faf du Plessis took over the South Africa captaincy after the retirement of AB de Villiers and led the team in 32 Test matches. With 17 victories in Tests, he has a success rate of more than 50 %. He played only 3 drawn matches and believes in a result-oriented match instead of high scoring ones.

In the ODIs, Faf du Plessis captained the team in 39 matches and has won 28 of them. Whereas in the T20Is, Faf du Plessis has won 23 out of 37 matches. He is one of the best captains of South Africa after AB de Villiers and has reliable performance.

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In the IPL, this will be du Plessis’s first captaincy assignment. In international cricket, he has led several teams in the T20 format, including South Africa and World XI in international cricket. Comilla Victorians, Paarl Rocks, St Kitts and Nevis Patriots and St Lucia Kings are the other teams that du Plessis has led in T20 leagues. He has been the T20 captain in 79 matches previously, with 43 wins, 34 losses, one tie and one no result, with a win percentage of 55.76.

Former CSK man

In the 2011 IPL auction, du Plessis was picked up by Chennai Super Kings in the 2011 IPL but he made his IPL debut only in the following season. He played for the Super Kings from 2012 to 2015 and during the team’s two-year period of suspension, he represented Rising Pune Supergiants in 2016 and 2017. He was back with the Super Kings from 2018 to 2021, a period in which they won two titles. He also received a bid from the Super Kings in the mega auction earlier this year, but the Royal Challengers, who were involved in a fierce bidding battle with Delhi Capitals for Du Plessis, eventually roped him in for INR 7 Crore.

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Prolific batter

Du Plessis has played 100 IPL matches (93 innings) so far, scoring 2935 runs at an average of 34.94 and a strike rate of 131.08, with 22 half-centuries. In the last four seasons of the IPL, he has scored 1640 runs in 47 innings, with 633 of those runs coming in 2021.

In February 2021, du Plessis retired from Test cricket, with the series against Pakistan being his last, stating that his focus was on T20 cricket and the T20 WC. However, he was not picked by South Africa for the world event last year, with his last T20I appearance coming against England in December 2020 (in which he scored an unbeaten 52) while his last ODI was against Australia in the 2019 World Cup (in which he struck a hundred).

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RCB will begin their IPL 2022 campaign on March 27 against Punjab Kings at the DY Patil stadium in Mumbai.