Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Director of Cricket, Mo Bobat, has said that skipper Rajat Patidar had fractured his knuckle and Josh Hazlewood had some niggles just before the war break and the one-week
postponement of IPL 2025 helped the players recover and come back in full strength for the latter phase of the tournament.
Although the team was well-placed for a place in the playoffs, it hadn’t cemented a place in the top two yet. The camp was riddled with injuries and niggles to some major cricketers.
From a workload perspective, the break came at the right time for Bengaluru as Patidar healed enough to feature as an impact player in their first two games after the break. In his absence, wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma led the team.
“We had some injuries and niggles. You know, Rajat had fractured his knuckle. Josh Hazlewood’s shoulder niggle had appeared. Dev [Padikkal] was struggling a little bit with his hamstring at that time,” Bobat said while speaking to Cricbuzz.
“The bodies were creaking a little bit because of the schedule. And so, there were pros and cons. You know, I think so long as we could patch up the guys physically, I was quite keen for us to play soon,” Bobat added.
“I would say there were upsides and downsides to the break. Mentally it was bad timing because actually we were in a good place. We were playing good cricket. You don’t want to lose that feeling and that momentum,” Bobat said.
Bengaluru faced a slight stutter after the break as their home clash against the Kolkata Knight Riders was washed out.
Teams were caught in a tough spot after IPL 2025 was suspended midway because of the volatile turn of events.
“The moment we caught wind of the postponement, myself and Andy immediately met with the overseas players. I remember they came to my hotel room and we spoke to them,” Bobat said.
“We wanted to make sure that we treated them like adults, because they are. If they didn’t feel comfortable being in the country because of the conflict escalating and they wanted to go home, we said we have to honour that,” Bobat added.
