Faf du Plessis, on Saturday, was named Royal Challengers Bangalore’s captain for IPL 2022. The former South African skipper succeeds Virat Kohli, who stepped down from the post after the last season. 

“I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity. I have played a lot of IPL and understand the dynamics of the game. It’s no small thing to trust an overseas player,” Du Plessis said, after he was handed over the cap by team’s chairman Prathmesh Mishra and director cricket operations Mike Hesson in a virtual event. 

Also read: Kohli excited to play under Faf du Plessis: Happy to pass on the baton

“I would rely heavily on the amazing experience of domestic players. We have got great leader of the game in Virat Kohli,” he added. 

Former RCB captain Virat Kohli said that he is happy to hand over the baton to Faf du Plessis. 

Who is Faf du Plessis? 

Faf du Plessis has so far played 100 games in IPL, scoring 2935 runs at a strike-rate of 131-plus. He scored 633 runs for CSK in last year’s IPL-winning campaign.

Also read: Royal Challengers Bangalore announce Faf du plessis as skipper: A look at his captaincy reco

Hailing from Pretoria in the Transvaal Province of South Africa, Du Plessis made his international debut in a T20I versus England in September 2012.  He played his first ODI against India with a half-century and also played the World Cup that year. 

The 37-year-old’s Test debut came in 2012 against Australia. He led South Africa in several ICC events. In the 2014 T20 World Cup, under Du Plessis’ leadership, the Protea’s scored a semi-final finish. 

He succeeded his school friend AB de Villiers as the Test captain and led the team to a series win against Australia at home. After the latter stepped  down half-way through 2017 as ODI captain, following a disastrous Champions Trophy campaign, Du Plessis was appointed the captain of South Africa across formats. He led the team in the 2019 World Cup and was the only Protea batsman to feature in the top-20 run-getters list. 

Du Plessis was Chennai Super Kings’ mainstay since 2018. He was roped in by the Royal Challengers Bangalore for a whopping Rs 7 crore in the 2022 mega auction.