Former Indian opener Aakash Chopra is impressed with the Rajasthan Royals’ bowling battery as the inaugural champions have bowlers like Trent Boult, Prasidh Krishna, Ravichandran Ashwin, and Yuzvendra Chahal.
All of these bowlers were brought by the franchise in the IPL 2022 mega auction.
Furthermore, they have the likes of Navdeep Saini and Nathan Coulter-Nile in their squad. Thus, they have a potent bowling line-up and they would aim to tick the right boxes.
Boult can swing the ball both ways in the powerplay whereas Krishna can extract extra bounce from the bounce because of his height and speed. Ashwin and Chahal have all the experience under their belt and thus Rajasthan Royals have got the variety in their bowling attack.
Aakash Chopra said on YouTube Channel, “You might not see a better combination of four bowlers anywhere else. They have got Yuzi Chahal, Ashwin, Boult, and Prasidh Krishna. Eight overs of spin, eight overs of pace are sorted. They can get some overs from Neesham and Riyan Parag too.”
Meanwhile, Rajasthan Royals decided to rope in Devdutt Padikkal despite having openers like Jos Buttler and Yashasvi Jaiswal. The renowned commentator reckons the left-handers should open the innings while Jos Buttler should bat in the middle-order as they don’t much experience in the middle.
“All of our eyes were opened in shock when despite retaining the likes of Samson, Jaiswal, and Buttler, RR were going hard for Devdutt Padikkal. Whom will you open with? That’s the only tricky question that they need to answer.”
“According to me, they need to open Padikkal with Jaiswal and see what happens and bat Buttler in the middle order. This is because, apart from Karun Nair and Riyan Parag, RR doesn’t have an experienced Indian batter in the middle-order.”
Rajasthan Royals will take on the Sunrisers Hyderabad in their opening clash of the season on March 29 at the MCA Stadium in Pune.
RR squad: Batters: Devdutt Padikkal, Shimron Hetmyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Karun Nair, Rasse van der Dussen.
Wicketkeepers: Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, Dhruv Jurel
Allrounders: Riyan Parag, Ravichandran Ashwin, Anunay Singh, Jimmy Neesham, Daryl Mitchell
Bowlers: Trent Boult, Navdeep Saini, KC Cariappa, Prasidh Krishna, Yuzvendra Chahal, Obed McCoy, Kuldeep Sen, Tejas Baroka, Kudip Yadav, Shubham Garhwal, Nathan Coulter-Nile.
