IPL 2018: Rajasthan Royals announce their skipper for the season

The IPL auction 2018 is just moments away. All the fans are damn excited about this auction. Also, the suspended teams Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings made a comeback in the league this year. These two teams were suspended back in 2015 following match-fixing allegations.

However, after two long years, these two iconic teams are back. They will look to build a strong squad going into the tournament. Both these teams were the champions of the tournament previously. They were given a chance to retain players from their 2015 squad who played for either the Rising Pune Supergiant or the Gujarat Lions in 2016 and 2017.

The Royals feel that the retention policy was unfair to them

The Rajasthan Royals resented right since the retention policy was announced. They felt that the policy didn’t suit all the teams. The Royals were only left with six options to use their retentions and RTMs. On the eve of the IPL auction, the Rajasthan Royals co-owner Manoj Badale opined that not being able to retain three players from the 2015 squad has turned their ‘two-year suspension into a five-year ban’.

In an exclusive chat with Sportstar on Friday evening, Badale said: “We have the equal biggest purse, but that is simply because it was impossible to retain three of our players from 2015. So in effect, our two-year suspension has become a five-year punishment.”

The Royals are looking to build a balanced squad since they don’t have many of their star cricketers available. They’ve used one out of their six options and can use the three RTM cards for five players. This indeed makes things unfair for the team. “Our strategy has simply been to focus on building a side with balance, hoping that all of the star players are not captured by the multiple ‘right to match’ cards in the room,” Badale said.

The skipper?

The Rajasthan Royals have also confirmed that Steve Smith will lead the side. They are looking to build a squad around him. “Currently that is the plan (to make Smith the skipper), but you always need options,” Badale said.

When Badale was questioned why only Smith was retained, he said “We retained only one, but then, effectively we could have only retained four players!” the co-owner said, indicating that the prevalence of RTM may not allow the franchise get 35 top players. “We have plenty of options (in the auction), but the prevalence of ‘right to match cards’ means that 35 of the best players are effectively unavailable to us.”

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