Signing Jaydev Unadkat was the part of our plan: Manoj Badale

Rajasthan Royals was one team which looked entirely satisfied after the two-day auction last week after spending on the most expensive players. They went aggressively for the likes of Ben Stokes and Jaydev Unadkat who were the hot picks and successfully bagged them for whopping amounts of Rs 12.5 Crore and Rs 11.5 Crore respectively. They are also returning to the foray of the Indian T20 extravaganza after the gap of a couple of years after being suspended for the alleged involvement of the franchise in the spot-fixing saga in 2013.

They were also at a disadvantage when it came to retaining the players and using Right to Match cards for them. Most of their players featured in the for the other teams except Gujarat Lions and Rising Pune Supergiant which meant that they had no rights on the players to retain or use RTM. But they came in with a clear plan into the auction and were somewhat seem to be successful after building a squad of 23 players. The co-owner of the team also justified their picks at the end of the auction.

We were at a competitive disadvantage

In an interview to live mint, the co-owner of Rajasthan Royals, Manoj Badale, explained the money they shelled out for Jaydev Unadkat. He insisted that going for the left-arm pacer was the part of the plan and were happy to have him in their side. “It was part of the plan. We had six clear targets, which we knew would be expensive given that they were targets for other teams. While you might not think Unadkat is a marquee name, if you look at his performances in the last IPL, he was one of the reasons Pune (Rising Pune Supergiant) got to the final,” he said.

Manoj also pointed out the fact they were hard done by the retentions and Right to Match cards and so had to plan their strategy properly before the event. “Since 2010-2013/14, we have got a few retentions, so we were only supplementing. This year, we rebuilt from scratch. The retention and RTM (right to match) rules put us at a competitive disadvantage going into the auction. Hence our planning and prep had to be more precise,” he added.

Royals owner also accepted that they didn’t get few players they would’ve wanted to have in their squad. “Inevitably, you have two-three misses. It would have been nice to get a player you have invested in developing, like Karun Nair, and we are respectful of players like (Ravichandran) Ashwin (both bought by Kings XI Punjab),” Badale concluded.

Keep following CricTracker for more news and updates on IPL 11