Rajat Patidar of Royal Challengers Bangalore raises his bat after scoring a century. (Photo Source: IPL/BCCI)

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) will begin their Indian Premier League 2023 journey against Mumbai Indians (MI) on April 2, at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. Days before the start of the tournament, the franchise suffered a huge blow, with their premier players Josh Hazelwood and Rajat Patidar getting ruled out of the initial few matches of the competition.

Both RCB players played a crucial role in their team’s journey till Qualifier 2, last season.  In the huge Eliminator match against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), Patidar scored an unbeaten 112-run knock that helped Bangalore to bag the game by 14 runs. Before joining the RCB camp for the 2023 season, the spunky batter picked up a heel injury and it has put him on the sidelines for now.

In their opening match against five-time champions MI, RCB will miss Patidar’s services. However, RCB’s head coach Sanjay Bangar is hopeful of Patidar getting the green signal from National Cricket Academy (NCA) and returning to the RCB fold for the ongoing marquee event soon.

Discussing Patidar’s injury, Bangar said, “As far as Rajat goes, at this point he’s out of our control, at the NCA he’s sort of undergoing treatment in that particular academy and we are still waiting for the clarifications from him. And once we get the clarifications, our media team will certainly keep you in the loop and it might also be the case the NCA will take a very sporting call on what he does or what his future holds.” 

As per Cricbuzz, RCB’s match-winner player is undergoing rehab for a heel injury at the NCA. The 29-year-old is also advised to take rest for the next few weeks. In the upcoming days, an MRI scan will reveal his chances of participation in the second half of the tournament. Without Patidar, the three-time IPL runner-ups may reshuffle their batting line-up.

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