BENGALURU: Around 7.00 PM on a relatively pleasant Saturday evening, there was the striking image of Ishan Kishan and Rajat Patidar walking out for the toss. In a microcosm, it was the apt way to begin the 19th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). It's one of the few times that two non-centrally contracted Indian cricketers have walked out for the toss for an IPL game.
This is also the first year when all 10 teams will have Indian captains at least to start the campaigns (Pat Cummins is likely to come into the XI at some point in Sunrisers Hyderabad's season). It's also important to note that Kishan may have met the automatic eligibility criteria to meet a basic Grade C contract but, technically, he doesn't have a central contract.
It wasn't always like this.
When the league began in 2008, the leadership group and support staff pivoted to appointing Indian legends or bonafide overseas stars as captains. It didn't matter if they had any meaningful pedigree in this format. As long as they had captained India in one of the two other formats or commanded the respect of the dressing room or were 'seniors', they got the gig. No questions were asked. It was a similar kind of arrangement with foreigners as well.
Run through a list of former IPL captains and you get Steven Smith, Mahela Jayawardene, George Bailey, Zaheer Khan, Kevin Pietersen, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman, Ravindra Jadeja... this in-exhaustive list, though, has seen a subtle shift over the last few years. And there's no better place to start than Royal Challengers Bengaluru, the defending champions. They appointed Jitesh Sharma as captain when Rajat Patidar was injured for a period of time in 2025. And speaking of 2025, Patidar was a curious, inspired choice for permanent captaincy post Faf du Plessis' tenure.
Patidar and Sharma — not a guarantee in any of the three formats — job-sharing the captaincy hasn't happened many times in the past. But over the last few years, it has changed. Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Capitals had first-mover advantage as they plumped for the likes of Shreyas Iyer, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Sanju Samson a few seasons ago. Mayank Agarwal in 2021. Axar Patel joined the list in 2024. You can, perhaps, add Shubman Gill to the list as well as he was still establishing himself as a big name.
Why this shift? Previously, teams allocated a budget to appoint a 'leader'. Now, there's greater propensity to just buy specialists, batters and bowlers and create 'leaders'. Can you create a 'leader'? CSK have, in a way, done that with Gaikwad. They had him shadowing MS Dhoni for a few years before giving him the job in 2024. "Last year itself, Mahi bhai (MS Dhoni) had hinted about captaincy at some point of time," Gaikwad had told the official IPL website in 2024. "He just hinted that, 'be ready, it shouldn't be a surprise to you'. When we came into the camp, he involved me in some of the match simulation."
Daniel Vettori, Hyderabad's chief coach, spoke about why they gave it to Kishan, who has never captained a franchise before. "The leadership he exuded throughout that first season (in 2025), particularly in the back half when he took over wicket-keeping, really brought energy to the group and set up our back half of the year, and we were pretty successful in that period," the Kiwi had said in the pre-match press conference on Friday. "So when Patty (Cummins) was unfortunately out of the initial stage of the tournament, we obviously had some decisions to make and his experience with his state team in particular had been so impressive. And then obviously he was in really good form. So between Abhishek (Sharma) and himself, we feel like we've got a really good leadership group to lead us this year."
Sharma being the vice-captain is also a curious choice, especially considering the likes of Travis Head, Heinrich Klaasen and Harshal Patel were already internationals when the opener was still playing age-group cricket. The thing about Vettori's response, though, is that franchises are now very awake to opportunities, ultra flexible with options. It's how Patidar made the cut last year. Here was Andy Flower on Friday. "It's pretty amazing, actually, that in Rajat's first year of captaincy, he led RCB to the trophy," the Zimbabwean said. "He'd only had a little bit of captaincy experience before that, I think, for MP. But we did like what we saw when we saw him leading. He's obviously a very likeable man. He's well-respected in the dressing room. He's got high integrity. Really good guy. He stays nice and calm, which I think the bowlers like a lot."
Teams taking note of domestic success is a more recent phenomenon. Vettori, for instance, name-checked Kishan's success with Jharkhand. "Ishan's been around in the IPL for a long period of time now," he said. "He's been with a number of teams and he's been highly successful, so he brings his own confidence around that. The fact that he's led India Under-19s and his state team - and they won SMAT this year - just brings a confident person, a confident player and a really confident leader."
Captaincy isn't an exact science or art. Some people just become good at it over a period of time. RCB will hope Patidar can two-peat. SRH, meanwhile, will hope Kishan can do a Patidar.
But this trend, it's safe to say, is here to stay.