Former India player Aakash Chopra has opined on the Rajasthan Royals’ (RR) inability to find ideal replacements for their released players as one of their challenges in IPL 2025 as well. He added that the franchise’s new signings aren’t even close to the likes of Jos Buttler, Trent Boult,
Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin as well. However, RR retained Sanju Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel,
Shimron Hetmyer and Sandeep Sharma ahead of the IPL 2025 auction. They spent ₹40.70 crore at the mega auction to buy 14 more players to assemble a 20-member squad as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra’, he said, “They lost four players in the auction. They decided not to retain Buttler, and Boult, Chahal and Ashwin went apart from him. When so many such kinds of players leave, you ask how you would replace them. The replacements aren’t even close to them. It’s a completely Indian batting lineup (apart from Shimron Hetmyer). You had retained your entire batting lineup. You didn’t make any additions. You added just Nitish Rana and you didn’t pick any overseas batter. So an entire Indian batting lineup and no course correction or addition in the auction, slightly surprising from my point of view.”
However, Aakash Chopra added that a quality all-rounder’s absence could be another stumbling blocks in IPL 2025 for them as well.
“Another thing that was troubling me last year was that every team used to have an extra batter and bowler after the Impact Player rule was introduced as they had one or two all-rounders, but this team did not have any. It seemed like they were playing with six batters and five bowlers. They find themselves in a similar position again,” he said.
“I am surprised how that happened after a mega auction. You are considering Wanindu Hasaranga as an all-rounder. He is not really an all-rounder at the IPL level yet. He might have a great season this time. However, thus far he has done very well with the ball from time to time, but as a batter, he has not fired,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
