Rajasthan Royals IPL Team

Rajasthan Royals were one of the standout consistent teams of the previous cycle, finding that difficult balance within their team that is the key element of any good T20 outfit. It reflected as they reached the final in 2022, falling short to the Gujarat Giants, but that was in the past. The Royals are going for a rebuild, saying goodbye to a lot of their old stalwarts, and looking at trying to forge a new team with a similar balanced equation.

However, Rajasthan did retain the maximum of six players from their last team, becoming one of the few teams to take advantage of the new ‘Dhoni rule’ where capped players who haven’t represented India in five years could be retained on the cheap. Sandeep Sharma stays in Royals pink thanks to this rule, alongside captain Sanju Samson, who is a mainstay as Indian opener in T20Is, the uber-talented Yashasvi Jaiswal, the ever-improving Riyan Parag, as well as a couple of reliable middle order power bats in the shape of Shimron Hetmyer and Dhruv Jurel.

There are, however, a few big misses that RR will need to account for. They bid farewell to Jos Buttler, who has been a hero in Jaipur for many many years now, and that could be a big hole to fill — but a Jaiswal-Samson partnership doesn’t sound too bad. Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin both departed as well, and replacing that kind of spin quality was nigh on impossible with a restricted budget in the auction. With that in mind, RR went the overseas route, opting for the Sri Lankan spin pair of Wanindu Hasaranga and Maheesh Theekshana.

RR’s concerns might be more on the fast bowling front. Alongside Sandeep, they have the services of Tushar Deshpande and Akash Madhwal, but this isn’t the sort of domestic fast bowling talent that will blow anyone’s socks off. After that, they are relying on Jofra Archer, who seems to be a ghost of his former self, and with an eye on returning for England in Test cricket, is no guarantee to start every match. Their backup is South African teenager Kwena Maphaka, and Afghanistan’s Fazalhaq Farooqi. None of that premier fast-bowling talent that is essential to create winning teams, and a lot of responsibility will be on the batting to ensure they find the bonus 20-25 runs in a game to account for that.

Another storyline within the RR camp to keep an eye on is Vaibhav Suryavanshi, the youngest player to ever be sold in an IPL auction. The youngster has already starred for India U-19, and couldn’t have asked for a better landing spot in his first IPL than RR: he will be coached by the returning Rahul Dravid, and find himself playing alongside three Indian batters who know all about having high expectations from a young age, and fighting through that, hiccups and all. Maybe not just this year, but a team doesn’t give a 13-year old 1.1 crore if they don’t truly believe in him.