The way Sanju Samson took the T20 World Cup by storm ought to have left the Rajasthan Royals fans and management alike contemplating whether the seismic move of trading the opener to Chennai Super Kings was prudent enough. Since Riyan Parag is not the greatest sixth bowling option, the idea was to bring genuine all-rounders into the fold to fix the lack of depth in both the departments, particularly bowling after the exits of Avesh Khan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Ashwin, and Trent Boult.
Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran, bartered against the most capped player, highest run-scorer, and long-standing face of the franchise, are expected to heal the structural imbalances that saw them decay at the bottom of the table last year.
The promising South African connect
To compensate for the long tail Rajasthan Royals were forced to use Ashwin as a floater in IPL 2024, and Shimron Hetmyer’s underperformance next season meant they were among the worst performers in terms of runs, boundary percentage and strike rate in the final five overs. The addition of keeper-bat Donovan Ferreira, an architect of Oval Invincibles’ triumph in Hundred 2025 having hit 18 sixes out of the 77 balls he faced in the tournament, polishes their finishing ability. “In the last six months, I think my game has definitely gone to the next level,” Ferreira says. “If you look at SA20, it started getting better. Then MLC, I was fortunate to consistently dominate over there. In this year’s Hundred, be it five-ball 20 or whatever the case is, my contributions were significant in most of the games.’’
Also travelling from the rainbow nation are Nandre Burger and Kwena Maphaka, who was crowned the T20 Challenge Player of the Season at the CSA Awards 2024-25 after finishing as the joint-highest wicket-taker with 13 scalps, but playing either is tricky because of the multitude of overseas options Rajasthan Royals have in their squad. Adam Milne cranks up the speed gun while attacking southpaw Lhuan-Dre Pretorius holds the potential to be a like-for-like replacement for Samson. The jury is out on the acclimatization skill of western batters when subcontinental trials beckon, but the Proteas power-hitter quashed those doubts with a quickfire century against India A in Rajkot.
Rookie spinners keen to show their bag of tricks
As far as straight swaps are concerned, Vignesh Puthur replaced Kumar Kartikheya whose variations are a force to be reckoned with in the domestic circuit. He is wafer thin on experience, turning up for Mumbai Indians even before playing senior representative cricket for his state but the left-arm wristspinner from Mallapuram in Kerala did arrest 3-32 on IPL debut. Fit again after bone stress reactions in his shins cut his dreamride short, the youngster with a legitimate rags-to-riches story has the big boots of Mahesh Theekshana to fill. Their initial home games are at the Barsapara Stadium in Guwahati where the red-soil pitch is conducive to turn and bounce, an attribute lanky leggie Yash Raj Punja is primed to benefit from. He was the second-highest wicket-taker in the Maharaja KSCA T20 Trophy, and pretty consistent too given the accomplishment of three-fers on five occasions.
We begin our #IPL2026 campaign with three BIG home games in Guwahati and one trip to Ahmedabad! 🔥💗
Which one are you most excited for? 👀 pic.twitter.com/XodL1heNpp
— Rajasthan Royals (@rajasthanroyals) March 11, 2026
Rajasthan Royals have a penchant for nurturing prospects – from Jadeja, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Parag and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi to Samson. Even the extraordinary rise of Pravin Tambe, who debuted in 2013 at 41 years and 212 days, endures as one of the league’s most iconic stories. “But I’ve always had a wry smile when I read those things because we’ve never had any other objective – certainly for the past four years – of doing anything other than winning the IPL. We are not only here to develop young talent. We are here to compete and win,” owner Manoj Badale asserted, laying out the team’s larger goal, which unfortunately couldn’t be achieved since the inaugural edition of IPL in 2008 under the legendary leadership of Shane Warne. They have, however, made the playoffs six times, including the final in 2022.
The vexatious chasing conundrum
As the caravan rolls on, the men in pink will head home to Jaipur’s Sawai Mansingh Stadium, a venue that has historically favoured chasing teams with sides batting second winning 41 of the 64 IPL matches played there. The problem is, until a 14-year-old pulled off a miracle, they were able to gun down a target only once in eight attempts in the previous edition. Yet they won the toss seven times and opted for the daredevilry each time. In spite of letting Jos Buttler go, Rajasthan Royals were the most destructive unit in the PowerPlay in IPL 2025, rattling along at 11 runs-per over. However, they lost the most wickets in the middle-phase, their average runs/wicket and run-rate too, being on the lower side. Parag and Dhruv Jurel misfired, falling prey to the whims of the reverse-swinging old ball.
The likes of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Avesh Khan, Andre Russell consigned them to agonizing losses. The margins were as slim as reed: one run, two runs, ten, eleven, a super over. Bought for 11 crores on the premise of his strike rate in the death overs touching 200 between 2022 and 2024, Hetmyer finished with a strike rate of 158.53, the seventh-lowest among 46 batters who were a frequent presence in the death overs.
Indian turks eager to make the difference
Reviewing their 2025 disaster Aakash Chopra said, “Last year Rajasthan Royals had a well-rounded bowling line-up but they decided not to retain any bowler barring Sandeep Sharma and now they are facing the wrath of it.” The expensive retentions of Jurel (14 crore) and Hetmyer, he felt, were a detriment to their assembly of a good bowling attack. Neither of Jofra Archer, Hasaranga or Theekshana went on to have a defining impact, and as a result they proved to be the worst bowling side on averages and economy rates by a fair distance. In the nine games Samson opted to field first, they conceded seven 200-plus totals.
In hindsight, perhaps, Rajasthan Royals would’ve fared better had they allowed their stronger suit to take first strides in the clash, and set it up for the weaker half. Can the Indian core comprising of the retained Tushar Deshpande, express Kuldeep Sen, Jammu and Kashmir seamer Yudhvir Singh Charak and Shubham Dubey, an explosive left-handed batter with a standout display in the 2023 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, provide the spark and cohesion that livewire Jadeja often brings to the table?
