It’s early days in the IPL, but the Rajasthan Royals have had a fantastic start to the season. There were doubts over how the Royals would fare without long-serving captain Sanju Samson, India’s Player of the Tournament at the recent World Cup who has moved to CSK this season. But RR not only seem to have filled the hole left by his departure, but are also playing an excellent brand of cricket that makes them a neutral fan favourite.
Young Indian core shines at the top
Well begun is half-done, as they say, and a lot of Rajasthan’s success in this campaign can be attributed to their young Indian top-order. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is just 15; Yashasvi Jaiswal and Dhruv Jurel are both in their early 20’s (born after 2000) and the trio have been explosive at the beginning, landing early punches that the opposition fails to recover from.
Here is a sample of their powerplay scores so far this season. Some of those numbers are quite mind-boggling to say the least-for example the 97 scored against defending champions RCB who had the likes of Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar in their attack.
74/0 v CSK (opposition 41/4)
69/0 v GT (opposition 56/0)
89/2 v MI (opposition 60/5)
97/1 v RCB (opposition 61/3)
Their rate of scoring, as you can see, far exceeds that of their opponents in the same period, and it leaves the latter playing catch-up for the rest of the game. In a format like T20, that’s often the difference between winning and losing.
There is a very good possibility that this trio will have a long and fulfilling career in Indian colours in the future. If you’re an Indian fan outside India or even just a generic cricket fan, these are the folks you need to keep your eye on, and you can follow their pursuits by using a free trial VPN to connect to streams when they’re in action.
There is already talk that the 15-year-old Sooryavanshi will be called up to the national side for the Ireland tour, which would see the teenager follow in the footsteps of the legendary Sachin Tendulkar, who made his debut as a 16-year-old back in 1989.
A solid bowling lineup
Sooryavanshi, Jaiswal and Jurel’s fireworks at the top have been backed up by a solid bowling lineup. In Jofra Archer and Nandre Burger, they have a tall left and right handed fast bowling opening combo capable of hitting 150+ and exploiting whatever little movement the surface might offer.
After Archer and Burger, you have the canny Sandeep Sharma, who has fantastic variations and is a very good death bowler. In Ravi Bishnoi, they have a young leggie who takes plenty of wickets and halts the opponents’ batting momentum mid-innings.
The fifth bowler is usually Tushar Deshpande, who has proved his yorker skills against GT, and they also have the likes of Riyan Parag and Ravindra Jadeja to offer spin bowling depth.
While they have a good bowling lineup, one could argue it leaves them a little weak on batting depth- the likes of Burger, Sharma and Bishnoi aren’t really batsmen, but as long as the top order keeps firing, that’s one aspect they need not be worried about.
They would probably become an even more fearsome side if their other overseas players- Shimron Hetmyer and Donovan Ferreira, start to contribute more regularly with the bat.
At this moment though, they look good to get to the playoffs, and as mentioned earlier, are playing an exciting brand of cricket that makes you pause and take notice.