Rajasthan Royals (RR) have traded their captain Ajinkya Rahane to Delhi Capital (DC), the franchise announced on Friday. In exchange, they have got the services of Mayank Markande and Rahul Tewatia.
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While Tewatia was bought by DC for Rs 3 Crore at IPL 2018 auction, DC brought in Markande from Mumbai Indians for Sherfane Rutherford in a couple of months back. With R Ashwin joining the team, DC migt have tweaked their plans and have traded Markande to Rajasthan Royals.
Markande, who was bought by Mumbai Indians at his base price of Rs 20 Lakh for IPL 2018, shone in his debut season with 15 wickets. In less than a year, he also earned a national call up and made his T20I debut against Australia earlier this year. Though he didn’t get enough chances in IPL2019 and just played three matches.
Tewatia, the Haryana leg-spinner, played 13 matches for Delhi in which he scalped eight wickets.
The trading of Rahane does come as a surprise as he led Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2018 and 2019. In the first season, Rajasthan qualified for the playoffs but was replaced by Steven Smith as captain this year mid-season. He returned as captain when Smith left IPL for World Cup 2019.
This is the second trade that Rajasthan Royals have done this year. The franchise traded their all-rounder Krishnappa Gowtham to Kings XI Punjab. In exchange, they got uncapped pacer Ankit Rajpoot, who had joined the team before IPL 2018 for Rs 3 Crore.
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The trading of Rahane confirms that Smith will continue to lead the Rajasthan but the franchise will have to make sure that they more non-English foriegn players during the auction. The likes of Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes are likely to leave the league early next year as well. Hence, the team will look to add no-English foreign payers in the squad.
The auction for the next season of IPL takes place on December 19 in Kolkata. Rajasthan Royals are expected to come up with the list of the released player in next couple of hours.