IPL 2019: Best XI for Rajasthan Royals
IPL 2019 is less than a month away, and all the players around the world are waited with bated breath for the mega event. Most of the teams would be planning their moves and plans already.
And this time, the teams will have to be very clever in forming their strategies as they will be juggling between the elections and the World Cup 2019.
All the team managements might have already framed a rough probable team that would take the field in their respective opening matches. On that note, here is a look at what the probable XI would be for the Rajasthan Royals when they take the field in their first match.
Top Order
In an ideal situation, the top order of Rajsthan will have Jos Buttler and Rahul Tripathi opening the innings. However, there are chances that Buttler might not be available for the major part or the entire tournament. In that case, Ajinkya Rahane will be the opener alongside Tripathi.
Last year, after Steven Smith was banned due to ball-tampering, Rahane took over the captaincy and led the team well. However, this year, Smith will be back and will presumably be captaining the side too, while coming in at No. 3.
Rahane and Smith are both slow starters and are not the outright explosive batsmen. So the Royals will be needing some firepower to take the innings forwards at a rapid rate.
In that context, Rajasthan would have loved to have Ben Stokes up the order. However, much like Buttler, Stokes is also uncertain for selection.
Hence, it is likely that Sanju Samson will fill in that slot. Samson has been with Rajasthan for quite some time now. Last year, he scored 441 runs in the 15 innings that he played. He is a clean hitter of the cricket ball.
Middle order
The middle order for the Royals is a bit brittle for the team's liking. Stuart Binny, Krishnappa Gowtham and Shreyas Gopal will slot in the middle.
All 3 are good hitters of the ball, but only on certain days. We might see a few middle order collapses from the Royals this season.
The team, however, will hope that these 3 give them results consistently, because they don't have an experienced player to replace any of them in the middle order.
Bowling attack
The bowling that Rajasthan has, can possibly act as redemption for the weak middle order. Players like Jaydev Unadkat, Jofra Archer and Dhawal Kulkarni make up the pace attack of the team. And that's not to forget that all three players that make up the middle order can give you overs too, as all of them are all-rounders.
However, out of this pace attack, only two will play every match. And considering Buttler and Stokes are not in the side, that gives way to two overseas players. These two slots will likely be taken by Oshane Thomas and Ish Sodhi.
The four overseas players can be played in two combinations. If the English players are available, then it will be Buttler, Stokes, Smith and Archer. On the other hand, in the absence of the Englishmen, it will have to be Smith, Archer, Thomas and Sodhi.
Either ways, the bowling attack looks a lot stronger than the batting line-up.