IPL 2019: Aakash Chopra says both Ajinkya Rahane and Steve Smith not cut for T20 format

The Rajasthan Royals team are having one of their worst Indian Premier League seasons in 2019, as they languish at the no.7 position in the IPL 2019 points table with only two wins in 8 matches and 4 points. They are only above Royal Challengers Bangalore due to a better net run rate.

Royals have failed to transform their home ground of Sawai Mansingh Stadium in a fortress and have lost games everywhere. Much of the blame for their failure has to be taken by the team management who have picked their team in the auction and for rebuying players who had done nothing for them in previous editions.

Rahane replaced as captain by Steve Smith

The captain of the team, Ajinkya Rahane did not lead from the front as he couldn’t transform his game to the rigors of T20 cricket. He continued to open for the RR team despite his slow batting and inability to take advantage of the powerplay meant that his partner Jos Buttler came under pressure to start hitting from the start, hampering his own game.

Rahane opening also meant that Rahul Tripathi, who had made his name as an explosive opener for Rising Pune Supergiant languished in the finisher’s role, which didn’t suit him. Another reason for their dismal performance came in form of Steve Smith, whose low strike rate meant that even after scoring 70 odd unbeaten runs, he couldn’t take RR to victory in one of the games.

To everyone’s surprise, RR decided to sack Rahane as a captain and handed over the reins to Steve Smith. Rahane had scored 201 runs in 8 matches at a strike rate of 133.11, while Smith has scored 186 runs in seven matches at a strike rate of 107.51. However, given Smith’s captaincy history in IPL, where he led RR to playoffs in IPL 2015 and then Rising Pune Supergiant to finals in IPL 2017, The RR team management handed him the captaincy.

However, former India cricketer and IPL commentator Aakash Chopra feels otherwise. Steve Smith is available until a definite time since he will have to leave for Australia to prepare for the upcoming ICC World Cup 2019. This means RR will need someone else to captain their team for those games in which Smith will not play. Chopra also opined that neither Rahane nor Smith were suitable batsmen for T20 format, given their strokeplay and shots they had.

Chopra tweeted, “Smith replacing Rahane in the middle of the season. #RR will need someone else to replace Smith towards the end of the season. Incidentally, both don’t necessarily cut it in T20s. #RR”

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