Aakash Chopra, former India Test opener believes Gujarat Titans could be in big trouble without Jason Roy, who pulled out of IPL 2022, citing bubble fatigue.
The new IPL franchise had acquired Jason Roy at his base price of Rs 2 crore at the recent mega auction. However, it looks like the Gujarat Titans may have to go about their business without the Englishman. As per reports, the 31-year-old opener intimated the franchise about his decision last week.
Aakash Chopra: Jason Roy’s Absence Puts Gujarat Titans In A Soup
Aakash Chopra feels while Jason Roy’s absence would put Gujarat Titans ‘in a soup’, the opener’s future participation in the competition also becomes doubtful.
Taking to Twitter, Chopra wrote in this regard: “Bio-bubble fatigue is REAL. Nobody should ever trivialise it. One could understand why Roy has pulled out of the IPL. That said…it puts GT in a soup. And IPL remembers who pulled out & when…and that affects future purchases of the same player. It’s not heartless but pragmatic..”
Meanwhile, this is not the first time Jason Roy has pulled out of the IPL. In 2020, Delhi Capitals signed the dashing opener for Rs 1.5 crore, but he opted out, citing personal reasons.
Jason Roy went unsold in the IPL 2021 auction but was drafted in by Sunrisers Hyderabad as Mitchell Marsh’s replacement. So far, Jason Roy has accumulated 329 runs in 13 IPL games at an average of 29.90 and a strike rate of 129.01, including two half-centuries. He has previously played for Gujarat Lions (2017), Delhi Daredevils (now Capitals) in 2018, and Sunrisers Hyderabad in the last season (2021).
Aakash Chopra Belives Gujarat Titans Were Not Up To The Mark With Player’s Acquisitions In IPL 2022 Auctions
The 44-year-old cricketer-turned commentator believes the Gujarat Titans were not up to the mark with their planning ahead of the auction. Aakash Chopra seemed miffed with Gujarat Titans shelling out so much money for David Miller, who has largely been inconsistent in the tournament.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Aakash Chopra said about the same: “I am not at all happy with David Miller’s purchase. He might prove me wrong; he has done once earlier also that if it is in the arc, it goes out of the park. It might happen again, but they spent too much money.”
He added: “They could have picked Sam Billings; they would have got him cheaper than Miller; he would have been another wicketkeeping option. There were better middle-order batters – I thought about Rassie van der Dussen; I was thinking about Steve Smith also, or I was even thinking that you could have kept Ajinkya Rahane.”
Gujarat Titans retained 3 players for a whopping 38 Cr; the most any franchise spent on retention on their top 3 players. Hardik Pandya and Rashid Khan were retained for INR 15 Cr each and Shubman Gill was retained for INR 8 Cr. In addition, Hardik Pandya was also announced as the captain for this year. If we talk about the IPL 2022 Auction, you can safely say that Gujarat Titans were pretty below-average.
Apart from pacer Lockie Ferguson and spin all-rounder Rahul Tewatia, they also got pacer Mohammed Shami at a price of ₹6.25 Cr. They also got some good steals in form of Jason Roy (who opted out) (₹2 Cr) and Matthew Wade (₹2.4 Cr). They banked on quite a few all-rounders as the likes of Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, and Jayant Yadav. However, their middle order looked slightly inexperienced.