New Delhi, May 2 After Rajasthan Royals’ (RR) crashed out of IPL 2025 playoffs race with a 100-run loss to Mumbai Indians’ (MI), former India batter Abhinav Mukund said if it was upto him, the money which the franchise spent on buying Nitish Rana and Vaibhav Suryavanshi would have been invested in acquiring a couple of good bowlers.
Before the auction, RR had let go of Trent Boult, Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal and Avesh Khan. Moreover, RR didn’t buy them back in the auction and instead brought in Jofra Archer, Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana, Tushar Deshpande, Kumar Kartikey Singh and Akash Madhwal, apart from retaining Sandeep Sharma – all of whom haven’t been in the best of form.
"Their one good bowler and the one whom they spent the most money on is Archer. Unfortunately, their Indian picks didn't go right. Tushar Deshpande was benched for this particular game; he was bought for a lot of money, 6.5 crore.
"But then again, you invested in two more batters: Nitish Rana (4.2 crore) and Vaibhav Suryavanshi (1.1 crore). How much ever I think, I would not have bought them (for that money). I would have invested that money in a couple of good bowlers.
"The last time they had Avesh Khan, Chahal, Ashwin, Trent Boult and Sandeep Sharma. These are five proper, bankable bowlers. That's a well-rounded bowling line-up. You should eventually get at least two or three. But you decided not to retain any bowler (barring Sandeep) and now they are facing the wrath of it," said Mukund on ESPNCricinfo.
Aakash Chopra, former India opener, also felt RR not having a genuine all-rounder and sixth bowling option also hurt them in terms of batting and bowling depth, as well as in using the impact player rule.
"The only team that was not having a sixth bowling option despite Impact Player was the Rajasthan Royals. Now Riyan Parag is giving you a couple of overs but is he your best sixth bowling option? No, he is not.
"I thought they would fix that problem, that, okay, we need a bridge, somebody who can bat and bowl, we will get an allrounder in the auction. Again, they didn't go in that direction either. So, what they didn't have, they didn't try to acquire. What they did have, they thought they would get it in the auction, but they didn't, which is their bowling department," he concluded.
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