After helping Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) win their first Indian Premier League (IPL) championship this year, veteran speedster Bhuvneshwar Kumar discussed how his relationship with Virat Kohli has altered.
When he and Kohli weren’t married, Bhuvneshwar claimed that their chats would usually be light-hearted and playful. But these days, the two Indian cricket greats talk about family issues more frequently than not.
“Now, things are different. Since everyone has a family these days, we discuss family and off-the-ground family issues more when we get together. We discuss topics other than cricket, like how we are doing in life. It was more about the typical fun and jokes that lads have when we were younger and not married. Thus, that’s where the shift has occurred,” Bhuveshwar stated in an interview with the “Talk with Manvendra” YouTube show.
As professional cricket players, Bhuvneshwar and Kohli are aware of the type of service that RCB requires from them.
However, I believe that we are professional on the ground. If RCB has selected me, Virat, or any other player, they want us to perform well on the pitch whether or not we are buddies, therefore we never really need that bond to perform well on the pitch. We know what we need to accomplish on the ground, I believe. However, as I mentioned, things have altered in that regard off the ground. The conversations have changed since everyone has grown up, even us, he continued.
Regarding the RCB captain and the successful IPL 2025 campaign, Bhuvneshwar said, “I think Rajat Patidar didn’t have to do much.”
In IPL 2025, Bhuvneshwar made his debut as a player under Rajat Patidar’s leadership. The Uttar Pradesh pacer claimed that Patidar didn’t need to do much because the RCB team had a wealth of experience. Bhuvneshwar did commend the Madhya Pradesh batsman, though, for limiting his interference and only contributing when crucial choices needed to be made.
It was excellent. The nicest element, in my opinion, was that Rajat didn’t have to do much because the squad was so seasoned. The nicest part was that he didn’t meddle too much, but when he did lead, it was exactly what was needed on the ground, and he handled it expertly. Since a team with so many senior players and so much expertise sometimes hesitates when making judgements, he didn’t. One of his leadership traits was that he made judgements when necessary and remained totally at ease when not. Therefore, I believe he was well aware of when and how to meddle,” Bhuvneshwar remarked.
Speaking about what worked for RCB in the 2025 Indian Premier League, Bhuvneshwar said that every player on the squad won games in a variety of circumstances and roles. The right-arm fast bowler believes that RCB benefited much from not depending on a select group of players.
The main distinction this time was that every member of the starting lineup won games for the squad in various positions, games, and circumstances. The steady performances of one or two players are insufficient to win a tournament of this size, which consists of numerous matches and teams. From your squad of eleven or twelve players, you need as many to perform as you can. With RCB, that is precisely what occurred. There were plenty of games where the batsmen performed their duties and plenty where the bowlers performed their duties. According to the 35-year-old, “some new player stepped up and won the game for the team in every situation, at every stage,” he claimed.
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