IPL 2023: Rajasthan Royals among the most balanced sides in the tournament. Royals played finals against Gujarat Titans in IPL 2022. Jos Buttler was the orange cap holder with 863 runs in IPL 2022.
If there was a chef preparing a perfect team dish, it would have the right amount of top-order batters, the correct flavour of middle order and finishing batters, and to finish it off, a perfect tinge of spinners and fast bowlers. And guess what? We have an absolutely perfect team on paper, not made by chefs but by the management of the Rajasthan Royals (RR)! Yes, the men in pink have jotted down all the necessary armour for an absolutely destructive T20 team and placed it perfectly in their squad.
Demolishing Opening Duo
The Royals from Rajasthan have an absolutely nerve-wracking upper order composed of Jos Buttler, Yashasvi Jaiswal and they have Devdutt Padikkal as a backup opener. A destructive left-right combination. We got glimpses of things to come in RR’s opening match against Sunrisers Hyderabad, as the duo belted 85 runs in just 5.5 overs for the opening stand. Buttler, who has been a beast of an IPL performer with an average of 40.07 strikes at 150.81 on any given day, tonked 22 balls for 54 in RR’s opening encounter against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). When Buttler is at the other end and the world is talking about the non-striker too, such is the talent of the young, left-handed Yashasvi Jaiswal, who scored a blistering 37-ball 54 runs in the first match of the season. For someone so young, Jaiswal already possesses a healthy career IPL strike rate of 135.67, which is the need of the hour in T20 cricket.
A well-balanced middle order
He walks in at number two, the captain of the pack, Sanju Samson. The man who needs no introduction and whose playing style will be the same any hour of the day. See the ball, hit the ball! And that’s exactly what he did in the season opener, scoring 55 runs at a strike rate of 171.88 with four massive sixes. If an early wicket falls, Devdutt Padikkal can step in as the number three batter, who averages 27.43, and can steady the innings with the style of play that suits him. Again, a left-right combination can be maintained to prevent the Royals from disturbing the opposition's line, length and field placements.
The flamboyant Riyan Parag swaggers his way into the middle of the alphabet as the number five. Parag, who has yet to have a breakthrough IPL season, has always shown signs, and if he picks up well, Rajasthan would head in the right direction with respect to finishing games. Just in case things go haywire, Rajasthan also has Joe Root as a backup who can walk into any team, not just Test teams but also T20 teams, given his leadership skills and ability to play spin.
Lethal finishers and all-rounders!
Caribbean is the flavour of T20 cricket, and this flavour gives the finishing touches to Rajasthan’s batting order. The deadly duo of Shimron Hetmyer and Jason Holder holds down the fort for the Royals in the finishing department. Hetmyer, who has scored 853 runs in 90 IPL innings, has come into his own ever since he moved to the Rajasthan Royals. A typical West Indian left-hander with hefty power smothering the leather of the cricket ball with an IPL career strike rate of 151.78. In the opening game, the same was on display as he powered the Royals above 200 with a 16-ball 22-run cameo in the final overs.
Jason Holder, who is yet to prove his mantle at the IPL level as an allrounder, is renowned for his all-round skills across the globe. A tall batter with a humongous reach only results in monstrous sixes. And that’s exactly what the Rajasthan Royals require: a few big blows in the end overs. If we talk about the need of the hour, Ravichandran Ashwin is the perfect need of the hour batter. He can clear his front leg and hoist the ball over midwicket on any given day against any given bowler. Ash had a strike rate of 141.48 in the 2022 season and bailed out Rajasthan on many occasions with the bat in hand.
Both Holder and Ashwin have been stalwarts in Test cricket, and both know the art of taking wickets. While Holder is known for his pace and bounce, he very cleverly varies his pace to outfox the batters, as he averages 27.93 with the ball and took 16.57 per cent of the team's total wickets in the 2022 season. When we are talking about cleverness, it would only be a crime if we didn’t mention Ashwin’s cleverness with the ball. An experienced customer, who reads the game probably better than any player in the world, troubled the batters with his off spinners cum carrom deliveries, picking up 12 wickets in the previous season.
A leg spinner and a left arm pacer - the perfect recipe for T20 bowling
In this age and generation of leg-spinners, Rajasthan have the privilege of having probably the two best spinners in the world, Yuzvendra Chahal and Adam Zampa. Yuzi, who is an IPL legend in himself, walked away with the purple cap in 2022 with a 27-wicket season. Chahal continued his IPL momentum and was at his very best in the season opener, picking four crucial wickets and giving just 17 runs in his four-over spell, only showing signs of positive things to come for RR.
Talking about positive things, the most positive cricketer, Trent Boult, wasn’t far from his best as he did what he does best, pick up wickets in the powerplay. Dismissing Abhishek Sharma and Rahul Tripathi, Boult derailed the Sunrisers batting even before the passengers boarded the train. If that wasn’t enough wicket-takers already, Rajasthan have Kuldip Sen and Obed Mccoy, the sensational discoveries of the 2022 season with the ability to pick wickets under pressure.
That sums up the strategic line-up of the Rajasthan Royals: the right amount of aggressive players to neutralise the anchor innings players, lethal finishers, all-rounders and, to top it all off, genuine wicket-takers in the bowling line-up who have the ability to pick up 10 wickets even on the flattest wickets. The runners-up of last season might just be in contention in 2023 to go one step over and lift the prestigious trophy if everything goes as per plan for the Royals!
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