Rajasthan Royals a Team can be a “dark horse” once again
The IPL 2020 season will be the 11th season for the Indian Premier League franchise Rajasthan Royals. The Rajasthan Royals are sometimes considered as the “moneyball” team of the IPL. The Royals are known to unearth obscure, high potential talent team. The team is currently being captained by Steve Smith. The franchise of Rajasthan has appointed Australian coach Andrew McDonald as a team coach.
Background
Player retention and transfers
The Rajasthan Royals retained 11 players and released eleven players.
Retained players: Steve Smith, Sanju Samson, Jofra Archer, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Riyan Parag, Shashank Singh, Shreyas Gopal, Mahipal Lomror, Varun Aaron, Manan Vohra.
Released players: Ashton Turner, Oshane Thomas, Shubham Ranjane, Prashant Chopra, Ish Sodhi, Aryaman Birla, Jaydev Unadkat, Rahul Tripathi, Stuart Binny, Liam Livingstone, Sudheshan Midhun, Ajinkya Rahane.
Auction
Rajasthan Royals purchased the most number of the players at the IPL 2020 Auction, 11. Their costly purchases incorporate Robin Uthappa for INR 300L, Jaydev Unadkat for INR 300L, and Yashasvi Jaiswal for INR 240L. Aside from these 3, they got Andrew Tye and Tom Curran for just INR 100L each. Shockingly, they got David Miller for just INR 75L.
Players bought: Robin Uthappa , Jaydev Unadkat, Yashasvi Jaiswal , Anuj Rawat , Akash Singh , Kartik Tyagi , David Miller , Oshane Thomas , Anirudha Joshi , Andrew Tye, Tom Curran
Indian Premier League
Preseason
England fast bowler Jofra Archer has been ruled out of the entire IPL 2020 season due to his injury. This is also a very big blow for the England team, who will not be with the team on their squad of Sri Lanka. Archer’s elbow has a stress fracture as of February 2020.
Offseason
On 13 March 2020, the BCCI postponed the tournament until 15 April, in view of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. On 14 April 2020, Narendra Modi said that the lockdown in India would last until at least 3 May 2020, with the tournament postponed further.The following day, the BCCI suspended the tournament indefinitely due to the pandemic.
On 17 May 2020, the Indian government relaxed nation-wide restrictions on sports events, allowing events to take place behind closed doors. On 24 May, Indian sports minister Kiren Rijiju stated that the decision on whether or not to allow the tournament to be conducted in 2020 will be made by the Indian government based on “the situation of the pandemic”. In June 2020, the BCCI confirmed that their preference was to host the tournament in India, possibly between September and October. On 24 July 2020, it was confirmed that the tournament would start from 19 September 2020.
Squads of RR
