Royal
Challengers Bangalore will hope Virat Kohli score piles of runs in the upcoming
Indian Premier League (IPL) season, starting in March. Kohli, however, will not
be leading the Bengaluru side this time around. He relinquished captaincy in a
bid to focus on his batting.

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Though
RCB never won the coveted IPL trophy, their performance under Kohli’s
leadership was not bad either. In 2016, a brilliant Kohli guided RCB to the
final but eventually lost the summit clash to Surnrisers Hyderabad. That season
Kohli finished with 973 runs in 16 matches at an average of 81. So far, RCB played
three finals but didn’t succeed on any of the occasions.

In the upcoming
mega auction, scheduled to be held in Bengaluru on February 12 and 13, RCB
coach Sanjay Bangar’s first priority will be finding a captain who can bring
good luck to the bereaved IPL side.

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While
Bengaluru cricketer KL Rahul was signed from the draft by Lucknow Super Giants
for a whopping Rs 16 crore, former Delhi Capitals captain Shreyas Iyer, who is reportedly looking for a captain’s position, and vexed Surisers Hyderabad batter David Warner are the two big names released by their
respective teams to the draft. They are up for grabs for the RCB, but they are
expensive, too. RCB have Rs 56 crore left in their coffer and they retained
only three players- Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, and Mohammed Siraj. Now, they have a
whole team to rebuild.

RCB may look up to Maxwell, who led Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League. But under his leadership, Stars finished third from the bottom. Though
Maxwell scored a 41-ball hundred for the Stars, his captaincy credentials are
no match for his abilities to fire with the willow.

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Therefore,
RCB have a critical area to address before the auction, where 10 teams,
including the new entrants Lucknow Super Giants and Ahmedabad franchise, will bid
for cricketers to make their squads. Jason Holder, a former Sunrisers
Hyderabad all-rounder, is available for a deal at the draft. Holder is an
experienced captain. In the past, he led the West Indies in Tests, ODIs and T20Is.
Considering Holder’s experience, former India opener turned commentator Aakash
Chopra suggested the West Indies cricketer’s name for the RCB captaincy role.

Chopra
analysed why RCB should look at Holder as a serious option to fill the vacuum
of captaincy. 

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“Let me
just throw in Jason Holder. Bengaluru has small boundaries, he is an
all-rounder, a medium pacer. He is an unassuming character. He doesn’t impose
himself, he stays in the background, quietly does his job. I think for a
franchise like RCB, he can be the right pick,” Chopra said on his YouTube
channel.

“He is an
all-rounder, he will play all the matches. He has captained West Indies well.
He will not take the center stage. When there is Kohli in the team, there
should be a captain who should not be looking for the limelight. He should be
happy basking in somebody else’s glory also because Kohli is that towering
figure,” Chopra added.

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At M
Chinnaswamy Stadium, which has relatively smaller boundaries, a bowler needs to change the
strategy more than often. Holder with his experience as an all-rounder can be a
handy inclusion to the RCB squad. He can also slog the ball down the order
and could be a good finisher in RCB’s power-heavy batting line-up.