Lot of ground to cover for RR.
Rajasthan Royals took a clean break from its past strategy of going for bits and pieces unheralded players. On Day 1 of the auction, it went for some of the players who have made waves in recent times. So in a way, their selection got much appreciation on Twitter. But an IPL team is also about the nuts and bolts players, whose performance is often the difference between an average and champion teams. On Saturday, Rajasthan Royals showed no real intent to get such utility Indian cricketers,
Before the auction they retained Steve Smith, who will be the captain in all likelihood. During the auction, it used RTM to get Ajinkya Rahane, who has played a large part of his IPL career for the Royals.
It virtually gave its all to get Ben Stokes, in a bid to replace the hole left by Shane Watson. Stokes was bought for Rs 12.5 crore, money well spent.
The rest of the auction strategy though was perplexing. RR just couldn't get going during the auction and ended up buying only 8 player . Two of them are BBL stars, D'arcy Short and Joffra Archer. Rahul Tripathi, Sanju Samson and Jos Butler are all explosive players.
However RR is in desperate need for bowlers. It hasn't bought anyone so far. The team also doesn't have any frontline A-lister pacer so far. The good news for RR is that they still have Rs 23.5 purse. The bad news is that cream of the lot have already been sold. RR need to get its act together on Day 2 and look to target some of the top bowlers who went unsold on Day 1. So Ishant, Hazlewood, Southie has to be on RR's radar alongside host of other bowlers who are there on pool.
RR can still salvage the auction, but it definitely need to be smart in its pickings to build a team which can challenge the fancied squads.
RR squad so far:
Benjamin Stokes
Sanju Samson
Jofra Archer
Jos Buttler
Ajinkya Rahane
Darcy Short
Rahul Tripathi
Stuart Binny
Rajasthan Royals: Ben Stokes (Rs 12.50 crore), Sanju Samson (Rs 8 crore), Jofra Archer (Rs 7.2 crore), Jos Buttler (Rs 4.40 crore), Ajinkya Rahane (Rs 4 crore), Darcy Short (Rs 4 crore), Rahul Tripathi (Rs 3.40 crore), Stuart Binny (Rs 50 lakh)
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 "Chairman and CEO, Rajasthan Royals, Ranjit Barthakur (L), arrives for the IPL 2018 Player Auction, in Bangalore")
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