IPL 2021: Rajasthan Royals complete players list, squad and all you need to know
Rajasthan Royals (RR) were one of the highly-rated teams in the Indian Premier League. They announced their arrival in style by beating MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings in the inaugural edition of the cash-rich IPL. MS Dhoni’s team set a target of 164 for the Royals but the then Shane Warne-led team chased down the target by 3 wickets.
The Royals won the game in the last ball of the over. Ever since winning the first edition of the IPL, they delved into a string of disappointments and frustrations in the upcoming season. Shockingly, they never made it to the finals since then. Although they signed the right players to bolster their squad, they were short of producing good performances.
They had a terrible season last time as they finished at the bottom of the IPL 2020 points table at the United Arab Emirates. The one-time IPL champions were defeated 8 times and won only 6 games, which goes to show how worse they had been in that season. However, the inaugural IPL champions will be desperate to reach the same heights this time around as they hope to perform well in the upcoming season of the IPL.
Rajasthan Royals stuns IPL 2021 auction
Rajasthan Royals have a history of splashing huge cash to sign a player. They purchased left-arm pacer Jaydev Unadkat for the first time in the IPL 2018 auction when the Indian player bagged a contract of a staggering Rs 11.5 crore. In the process, he went on to become the most expensive Indian player sold in that auction.
The pacer was then released by the Rajasthan Royals after that season. He was once again purchased in the 2019 auction for INR 8.4 crore. The inaugural champions once again released him ahead of IPL 2020 season and then purchased him for Rs 3 crore which is an absolute steal.
Once again, this time around, in the IPL 2021 auction on February 18, the Royals made the headlines after purchasing Proteas’ all-rounder Chris Morris for a record INR 16.25 crore, thus making the most expensive player in the history of the Indian Premier League.
Rajasthan Royals had released Steve Smith ahead of the auction and made a big move by not retaining skipper Steve Smith who had a bad season with the bat last time. Meanwhile, the Royals team management named Sanju Samson as the captain. They also purchased all-rounder Shivam Dube.
They retained three productive England players namely Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, and Jofra Archer. They released as many as 8 players including the likes of Steve Smith, Ankit Rajpoot, Oshane Thomas, Akash Singh, Varun Aaron, Tom Curran, Anirudha Joshi, Shashank Singh.
List of players retained: Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Jos Buttler, Riyan Parag, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Tewatia, Mahipal Lomror, Kartik Tyagi, Andrew Tye, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj Rawat, David Miller, Manan Vohra, Robin Uthappa.
List of players purchased: Shivam Dube (Rs 4.40 crore), Chris Morris (Rs 16.25 crore), Mustafizur Rahman (Rs 1.00 crore), Chetan Sakariya (Rs 1.20 crore), KC Cariappa (Rs 0.20 crore), Liam Livingstone (Rs 0.75 crore), Kuldip Yadav (Rs 0.20 crore), Akash Singh (Rs 0.20 crore).
Rajasthan Royals squad for IPL 2021:
Sanju Samson (c & wk), Jos Buttler (wk), Ben Stokes, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Manan Vohra, Anuj Rawat, Riyan Parag, David Miller, Rahul Tewatia, Mahipal Lomror, Shreyas Gopal, Mayank Markande, Jofra Archer, Andrew Tye, Jaydev Unadkat, Kartik Tyagi, Shivam Dube, Chris Morris, Mustafizur Rahman, Chetan Sakariya, KC Cariappa, Liam Livingstone, Kuldip Yadav, Akash Singh.
