New Delhi, May 20 : Some stories build in silence. Quietly, with absolute intent, until the moment arrives that cannot be ignored. Rajat Patidar is that story. And ROTORIS has chosen to stand beside him at the summit.
Patidar went unsold at an IPL auction. He returned as a replacement. He then scored 112 not out off 54 balls in a playoff, becoming the first uncapped cricketer in IPL history to score a century on that stage. The crowd at Ekana Stadium had to look up his name. They have not stopped saying it since.
Three years, one captaincy, and one IPL title later, he stands at the top of the IPL 2026 table with Royal Challengers Bengaluru, defending a championship that broke 18 years of waiting. This season, at a strike rate of 213.46 with 21 sixes, Patidar is extending a legacy.
ROTORIS — India’s first design-led mechanical watch house — recognizes him as A ROTORIS Man for IPL 2026.
“I never needed the shortest path. I needed the right one. There were years when nobody was watching and those were the years that built everything that came after. ROTORIS speaks the same language. Every timepiece they make carries the weight of something done the right way, not the fast way. That is why this feels true. Not just to a campaign or a season, but to something that actually lasts.”
Rajat Patidar, Captain, Royal Challengers Bengaluru
A ROTORIS Man is a rare designation. It belongs to those who did not simply arrive at greatness, but earned it in the years before anyone was handing out titles. Patidar spent those years in Indore, in Bhopal, on domestic pitches the cameras rarely visited. He scored a Ranji Trophy century in a final. He was released. He went unsold. He came back.
On a ROTORIS wrist, that journey does not just make sense. It is the entire point.
“We built ROTORIS for a very specific kind of person. Someone who is always becoming more. Rajat Patidar was released by the same franchise that would one day make him captain. He came back and gave them a title they had waited 18 years for. If that is not a ROTORIS Man, nothing is.”
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Aakash Anand, Founder, ROTORIS
“ROTORIS has always believed that the most beautiful things take time. You can see it in every dial we design. Rajat’s story is the most human version of that belief. He did not rush. He did not break. He kept going, and he arrived exactly where he was always meant to be.”
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Prerna Gupta, Co-Founder, ROTORIS
The brand enters the IPL 2026 playoffs having already written a year of firsts. In March 2026, Alpine F1 Reserve Driver Kush Maini wore the Astonia Sports Chronograph at the Melbourne season opener — the first time an Indian watch house appeared on an F1 grid. In April 2026, ROTORIS attended Watches & Wonders Geneva, the foremost gathering in the global watchmaking calendar. This summer, a second drop arrives — the Astonia and Manifesta collections, available by invitation to a waitlist that numbers in the tens of thousands.
Through the IPL 2026 season, Rajat Patidar will wear ROTORIS on and off the field. RCB has a captain. India has a timepiece. They were always going to find each other.