Rajat Patidar fined for RCB's slow over-rate against Mumbai Indians

Rajat Patidar, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) captain, has been fined INR 12 lakh for his side's slow over-rate in the win over Mumbai Indians (MI) at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium on Monday night. This was RCB's first slow-over-rate offence of IPL 2025.

Patidar, RCB's second-highest run-getting this season so far with 161 runs in four innings - behind Virat Kohli's 164 from four innings - has been credited with bringing a lot of aggression to RCB's batting in his first season as their captain.

His captaincy has also come in for praise. After the win over MI, Ambati Rayudu pointed to the reintroduction of the experienced Bhuvneshwar Kumar at a crucial point in MI's chase, calling it "a brilliant move" on ESPNcricinfo's TimeOut show.

Speaking about Patidar's shuffling of his bowlers, Sanjay Bangar said, "He was pretty smart with that. To hold back Krunal for the 20th over made absolute sense, because you don't want him to be bowling the 19th over with Josh Hazlewood only having ten or 12 to defend." Rayudu also noticed the fact that Patidar "was at ease in the pressure situations" and that Kohli didn't go up to him as often as he has done in the past to offer suggestions.

RCB, who have won three of their six games so far, next play Delhi Capitals (DC) at home in Bengaluru on Thursday evening.

Prior to this game, Hardik Pandya of MI, Riyan Parag of Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Rishabh Pant of Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) were the other captains to be fined for over-rate fines.