Rajasthan Royals have released a total of 11 players going into the IPL 2020 auction. The franchise has also confirmed that Steven Smith will be leading the team. Among the list of released players, the name of Jaydev Unadkat has drawn much attention.
The franchise had spent Rs 8.4 Crores to buy him back – RR had bought him for Rs 11.5 Crores in IPL 2018 auction. In IPL 2019, Unadkat scalped 10 wickets in 11 wickets. His economy rate was on a higher side – 10.66. The left-arm pacer is expected to draw the attention of the franchises but is not expected to be sold at a high price, which has been the case in past two seasons.
Ashton Turner, Oshane Thomas, Shubham Ranjane, Prashant Chopra, Ish Sodhi, Aryaman Birla, Rahul Tripathi, Stuart Binny, Liam Livingstone and Sudheshan Midhun are other players to be released by the franchise.
Tripathi was another player on whom the franchise spent big bucks, following his success at Rising Pune Supergiant in IPL 2017. Though he didn’t live up to the expectations. In IPL 2019, he got eight matches in which he scored 141 runs off 118 balls.
Turner had a woeful IPL season. He recorded three back to back golden ducks and managed three runs in his fourth outing. He might attract the interest of franchise who are looking for a finisher.
Binny was bought by the franchise his base price of Rs 50 Lakhs while Sodhi had joined the team as a replacement for Zahir Khan in 2018.
The franchise will be without the services of their former captain Ajinkya Rahane as he was traded to Delhi Capitals. In return, Rajasthan got the services of leg-spinners Rahul Tewatia and Mayank Markande.
They also acquired the services of King XI Punjab’s pacer Ankit Rajpoot and traded all-rounder Krishnappa Gowtham to KXIP.