Kumar Sangakkara, Rajasthan Royals’ Director of Cricket and Head Coach, has revealed which IPL team has the best spinners, and said that his franchise, the Rajasthan Royals, have two world-class spinners in Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal. The duo were signed by the Jaipur-based franchise going into IPL 2022.
“We’ve got the two best spinners in the IPL in terms of off-spin and leg-spin in Chahal and Ashwin” Kumar Sangakkara said in an official statement. He further went on to add that the team wanted to assemble a balanced squad and has done an amazing job to put this exciting and strong squad together.
“I think the franchise has done an amazing job to put this exciting and strong squad together. We know we had quite a bit of work to do in the off-season with regards to our team. I think we managed to identify the key areas which needed our attention and having had a proper process when it comes to selecting players at the auction, we managed to kind of hit the markers that we set for ourselves” he said.
Citing examples of players, Sangakkara said that the team managed to get almost all the players they wanted and have covered all areas. He said, “We have Boult, Prasidh, Saini, Coulter-Nile, McCoy, which makes up for a very exciting pace unit supported by of course the retentions of Yashasvi, Samson and Buttler. We have secured depth in every department, with Neesham, Mitchell and van der Dussen being exciting cricketers.”
Kumar Sangakkara on a poor IPL 2021: ‘That is all in the past now’
When asked what went wrong in IPL 2021, Sangakkara said that there were too many factors, be it player availability, split tournament and also performances, and said that it is something in the past now. He added, “I think there were a lot of different reasons for that, not just one or two. Whether it was player availability, split tournament, bigger break, and not the best of match performances in terms of batting or bowling. But that is all in the past now, and that’s why the squad has changed. We are now focused on the upcoming few weeks.”
IPL 2022: Rajasthan Royals squad
Sanju Samson (captain), Jos Buttler, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Shimron Hetmyer, Devdutt Padikkal, Prasidh Krishna, Yuzvendra Chahal, Riyan Parag, KC Cariappa, Navdeep Saini, Obed McCoy, Anunay Singh, Kuldeep Sen, Karun Nair, Dhruv Jurel, Tejas Baroka, Kuldip Yadav, Shubham Garhwal, James Neesham, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rassie van der Dussen, Daryl Mitchell.