Before the IPL 2025 season began, there were high expectations for the Rajasthan Royals. Nevertheless, the campaign has fallen well short of what both fans and experts had expected. Following a recent 100-run thrashing at the hands of the Mumbai Indians, RR was eliminated from the tournament as the second team.
Aakash Chopra, a former Indian cricketer, compared Jos Buttler’s role up till the previous season to that of Suryakumar Yadav in the Indian Twenty20 International team. He drew attention to RR’s glaring absence of an experienced batter on their team.
“I wonder if it was even a feasible option once they chose to use an all-Indian batting lineup, with Shimron Hetmyer lower down the order—the lone overseas batting option—and Samson as the oldest and most experienced player. We claim it’s a young man’s game, which is wonderful, but when you consider that all of them are gifted and skilled, but there isn’t a senior stateman in the team, as Jos Buttler did till last year, is that really a possibility?” Choppra
Suryakumar Yadav is still required in the Indian T20 team to manage everyone in his vicinity, both before and after him. He went on, “Hardik Pandya enters and provides you with some stability.”
You don’t have a senior man to keep you together: Aakash Chopra
According to the well-known pundit, depending only on children could either yield significant benefits or completely backfire.
“This type of performance nearly perfectly captures what young people may offer you on a bad day. Naturally, what Vaibhav Suryavanshi will provide you is also what young people can give you in the future. With this team, two wildly disparate performance extremes are still possible, and you lack a veteran player to keep things cohesive,” Chopra continued.
Other than Yashasvi Jaiswal who has looked impressive with 439 runs in 11 innings this season, none of the other RR batters have been consistent. More often than not, this has led to an underperformance which has hurt the team significantly in IPL 2025.
India
