IPL Rajasthan Royals

One look at the Rajasthan Royals team and one would have thought that this is the weakest team in the first season of the Indian Premier League. However, all that changed after the first auction, when many of the players that got signed up, made absolute sense for this format of the game. Incidentally, this is a team which owned by the Emerging Media Group, which bought the rights for this team for $67 million. This is also a very unique team, in that, it is the only one in the Indian Premier League to have a foreign captain and coach, and both, its captain and its coach are Shane Warne.

This is one huge chance for Shane Warne to prove his mettle as a captain, something he always craved for as an Aussie player, but his links with bookies, doping scandals and off field distractions put paid to his chances to lead the Aussie team. This is one opportunity that he would not want to let go. Incidentally, this team also consists of the only English player to feature in the first season, Dmitri Mascarhenhas, from Hampshire. Shane Warne, it must be remembered, also captained Hampshire and would have known Mascarhenhas from his Hampshire days.

Graeme Smith’s presence at the top adds a lot of value to this side, simply because of Smith’s experience as a T20 player, ever since its days of inception in the English county circuit. Smith has even led Somerset to a rare T20 triumph, and his hard hitting batting as an opener would be much vaunted. Yusuf Pathan is another excellent bat at the top, a batsman who was a part of the World T20 Cup winning squad, due to his strong batting that suits the T20 format. In fact in his last Ranji season, he has scored a century off even time – a la Sehwag style – each time he has got going.

However, with the exception of Mohammad Kaif, this does not seem to be a great fielding side, and this may come and haunt the team. The other big problem that could hit the RR team is its bowling attack which does not seem to be the strongest ever. Shane Warne may be a very good bowler, but apart from that him, there are not many who could probably be termed as that. Munaf Patel has this amazing ability to break down at the drop of a hat, where as Panjak Singh and the rest of the Indian bowlers are still very young in their first class career. And with the cap of a maximum four foreign cricketers being very much a hindrance for most teams, Rajasthan Royals may not be able to play all their better bowlers in the squad.

Shane Warne’s captaincy, Yusuf Pathan’s strength as a top order batsman and Mascarhenhas’ lower order lusty hitting is something to look out for. And what a treat would it be for all the Shane Warne fans to watch the great man back in action after a hiatus of an year or so!