Kerala’s own Sanju Samson will lead Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 edition. The announcement was made by the franchise on Wednesday. He will replace Australian batsman Steve Smith, whom the franchise released.
Steve Smith, world’s second top test batsman, failed to live up to his reputation in the 2020-edition of IPL. Rajasthan Royals also finished eighth in the points table and the team has released eight players ahead of the mini-auction for the 2021 season of the league.
The list of foreign players retained includes Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Jofra Archer. All three English players performed well for the Royals in the last edition of the tournament. Jofra Archer was the top wicket-taker for the Royals in the 2020 edition with 20 wickets while Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes have also contributed in Rajasthan Royals' important wins in recent past. In addition to the English trio, David Miller and Andrew Tye have also been retained.
The franchise’s list of released players include Steve Smith, Ankit Rajpoot, Oshane Thomas, Akash Singh, Varun Aaron, Tom Curran, Anirudha Joshi, Shashank Singh. The rest of the squad will have Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Jos Buttler, Riyan Parag, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Tewatia, Mahipal Lomror, Kartik Tyagi, Andrew Tye, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj Rawat, David Miller, Manan Vohra and Robin Uthappa.
IPL’s retention announcements were made on Wednesday evening and it involved several big international names including Lasith Malinga, Aaron Finch and Glenn Maxwell being released from their respective franchises. The franchises will now have funds to participate in a mini-auction in the run-up to the 2021-edition of the tournament, which is expected to take place in India.
In 2020, the IPL was conducted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) between September and November behind closed doors. Mumbai Indians won the trophy for the fifth time after they defeated Delhi Capitals in the finals.
(With IANS inputs)