English cricketer Moeen Ali, who served for the IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore (now Royal Challengers Bengaluru) for three seasons, recently revealed that the former RCB skipper Virat Kohli was almost removed from the captaincy role in the 2019 season.

Virat Kohli-led RCB played one IPL Final

Despite not winning any title, former Indian captain Virat Kohli was one of the most popular captains in the Indian Premier League. He is the only RCB captain to lead the team in 50+ matches, as he led the IPL franchise in 143 T20 matches between 2011 and 2023. Under his leadership, RCB played one IPL final in 2016, where they lost against Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Although Kohli temporarily led RCB in three matches during IPL 2023, he originally led the franchise actively in the 2021 season. Before the IPL 2022, he stepped down from the leadership role citing workload management. However, the former RCB cricketer Moeen Ali, who played 19 IPL matches for RCB between 2018 and 2020, revealed that Kohli was almost dropped from the leadership role after choosing an alternative.   

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Parthiv was in line to become captain: Moeen Ali

After finishing as the runners-up in the IPL 2016, Kohli-led RCB failed to reach the playoffs in the next three seasons (2017, 2018, and 2019), including finishing as the last placed team in the 2017 and 2019 editions. However, Kohli-led RCB has shown impressive improvement since the 2020 edition, where they reached the Eliminator. But Kohli's captaincy would be almost over earlier, as Parthiv Patel was in line for the next RCB captain.  

Moeen Ali told SportsTak, "Yes, I think he was. I'm quite sure he was. In the final year, when Gary Kirsten was there-after the first year, I believe-Parthiv was in line to become captain. He had a brilliant cricketing brain. That was the talk at the time. I don't know what happened or why it didn't materialise, but I'm sure he was seriously considered for the role."

Former Indian wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel played 32 T20 matches for RCB, including serving the team for two consecutive seasons in the IPL 2018 and 2019. This name may be shocking for some people, but he was one of the popular captains in Indian domestic cricket. Under his leadership, Gujarat won its first Ranji Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy, and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.