Name: Rajasthan Royals- Captain: Steve Smith
- Head Coach: Andrew McDonald
- Home Ground: Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur, Rajasthan
- Squad members: 25
- Best result: Champions in IPL 2008
They began with a dream campaign in the inaugural Indian Premier League season in 2008, starting as underdogs but lifting the trophy under the captaincy of Shane Warne. However, Rajasthan Royals have never made another IPL final after that inaugural season win in IPL 2008! They’ve splurged at the auctions each year but for some reason, can’t seem to make their campaigns go all the way.
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The preparations have been decent for IPL 2020 as they head out in search for their second IPL title. They retained 14 players and bought 11 more in the IPL 2020 auction, maximizing their squad quota. The big boys were all retained including Ben Stokes, who is the joint highest paid player in the team with a salary of Rs.12.5 Crore! Yet when you see his stats, you know that 635 runs and 26 wickets in 34 IPL games doesn’t do justice to his talent.
The last year or more has been a golden period for Stokesy. He played a massive hand in England winning the 2019 World Cup and then had a spectacular 2019 Ashes series as well, which won him the award for 2019 Wisden Cricketer of the Year. His countryman Jos Buttler has been retained too, with 1,386 runs in 45 IPL career games, including 9 fifties. No one will forget his record of 5 consecutive fifties in the IPL 2018 season!
Steve Smith came back strong after his 1-year exile due to the ball tampering fiasco. 774 runs in 7 innings in Ashes 2019 at an outrageous average of 110 shows how hungry he is for runs, and he’ll be looking to better his 3 fifties from IPL 2019. England’s Jofra Archer bagged 11 wickets in 11 games in IPL 2019 and while he’s a deadly pacer, the worry is that Royals may be too reliant on overseas players for IPL 2020.
Look at his numbers and you might say that Archer is slightly overrated as a bowler – unable to bring his magic to Indian pitches as yet. Like him, we have two tall and bustling Indian fast bowlers in Varun Aaron and Ankit Rajpoot – both of whom have shown talent to rip through any batting lineup on their day. However, those days don’t come too often. 42 wickets in 47 games and 22 wickets in 23 games respectively proves that point, both with IPL career economies of 8.6+.
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It’s clear that the Royals are going to suffer very much in the pace bowling department, which puts added pressure on the likes of Archer and Stokes. However, they’re more than secure in the spin bowling front with Shreyas Gopal having a magnificent IPL 2019 season, bagging 20 wickets in 14 games and while he didn’t really turn the ball much, his googlies weren’t being picked and wickets like ABD and Virat Kohli came to him easy!
Along with him, they’ve gone on to sign leg-spinner Mayank Markande who burst onto the scene in IPL 2018 where he picked 15 wickets in 14 games for Mumbai Indians but he didn’t really fit into their squad in IPL 2019, getting just 1 wicket in 3 games. Here too, he’ll find it tough to get a spot considering Royals may not want to pick 2 specialist leggies, while England pacer Tom Curran may also find it tough to break into the playing eleven.
If all are fit, Stokes, Smith, Buttler, Archer are the 4 overseas options and I don’t see that changing right through IPL 2020. One Indian talent to watch out for is Yashasvi Jaiswal, 18-year old opening batsman who was picked for a whopping Rs.2.4 Crore in the IPL 2020 Auction. He topped the charts in the 2020 U-19 World Cup with 400 runs in 6 games and in just 13 List A games, he has a best score of 203 runs. Beware of him!
RAJASTHAN ROYALS SQUAD FOR IPL 2020: Manan Vohra, Riyan Parag, Steve Smith (C), David Miller, Ankit Rajpoot, Mayank Markande, Jofra Archer, Shreyas Gopal, Jaydev Unadkat, Kartik Tyagi, Akash Singh, Oshane Thomas, Andrew Tye, Ben Stokes, Rahul Tewatia, Mahipal Lomror, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Varun Aaron, Anirudha Joshi, Tom Curran, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, Anuj Rawat, Robin Uthappa, Shashank Singh.
Oshane Thomas and Andrew Tye are two other overseas players who have made the squad through the auction, but again, both will find it very difficult to get a spot in the team, though both are equally talented. Given the slow nature of the Sawai Mansingh pitch, Tye may actually be more than handy for home matches, but the probability is still low as RR plan to capture their second IPL trophy! Stay tuned to ReadScoops.com for updates on RR’s IPL 2020 journey…
