One of the Rajasthan Royals’ most significant trades this offseason was acquiring Ravindra Jadeja from the Chennai Super Kings. And, by doing so, they have stirred up speculation around the all-rounder’s name as their next captain.
The experienced CSK all-rounder, Ravindra Jadeja, who is recognized for actually having made a difference with both bat and ball, has switched back to his old franchise, the Rajasthan Royals. He began his IPL journey with the franchise in 2008 and was part of the Shane Warne-led team that clinched the inaugural IPL title.
The players released by the Royals in various manners include Sanju Samson (traded to Chennai Super Kings), Nitish Rana (traded to Delhi Capitals), Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Kunal Singh Rathore, Akash Madhwal, Kumar Kartikeya, and Ashok Sharma.
Jadeja is the primary candidate to take over the captaincy of.
The rumors surrounding Ravindra Jadeja’s potential trade always came with another layer of speculations that he might be brought in as the new skipper of the Royals for the coming season.
The former captain, Sanju Samson, was involved in a trade with the CSK team, thereby leaving the captaincy vacant within the team. Besides Raja, the Royals have other candidates to be the new skipper, such as Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
A news article from the Times of India has reported that Ravindra Jadeja is now ordered in the list of the top possible candidates for the captaincy of the IPL season. To some extent, this has surprised everybody as the three other choices previously named seemed too young to be considered for such a long time and still, not the case with Jadeja who’s already 37 years old.
The official announcement of the new Captain will be after the mini-auction.
Ravindra Jadeja’s IPL return was marked by the big handedness of Chennai Super Kings’ leadership in 2022, when the talks of MS Dhoni’s captaincy reached their peak. However, after the team lost some matches, the all-rounder gave in to the pressure and resigned from the captaincy.
“A source close to the situation told TOI: ‘Jadeja will take over. The announcement will be made after two months.’ Now, it could be the captaincy that attracted Ravindra Jadeja to the Rajasthan Royals, as he even agreed to a whopping INR 4 crore decrease in his salary to join the Royals.
The Chennai Super Kings have retained Ravindra Jadeja for INR 18 Crores but in the case of his swap with Sanju Samson, who was also worth 18 crores, the Super Kings had to trade Sam Curran along the way as Jadeja was offered 14 crores by the Royals.
Royals to rebuild the team with sufficient funds keeping in mind the auction
Even though the batting line-up of the Rajasthan Royals seems more powerful compared to the past with the exit of their erstwhile captain, they would still have to go after some or at least a few big names in the mini-auction.
One of them could be a good middle-order batsman like Josh Inglis or a solid finisher like Andre Russell. The Royals were lacking some blasting abilities at the end and they were completely dependent on Shimron Hetmyer as they lost most of their crunch matches in the last season.
One does get the feeling the Royals must be looking to add at least one of those big names to their squad – given that they have only two compulsory slots remaining to complete their full list of 18 players under an 8.05 crore purse with the possibility for 8 more.