Rajasthan Royals owner Manoj Badale has said that RR successfully built a strong Indian core in the IPL Auction but he is disappointed that they couldn’t retain England pacer Jofra Archer. Mumbai Indians, however, bought Archer for Rs 8 crore at the IPL mega auction in Bengaluru on Sunday. Badale said that they went to the auction with a certain aim and mostly got what they wanted.
“Our priority this year was to build a strong Indian core, which we have done with the likes of Ashwin, Chahal, Karun, Saini, Devdutt, Prasidh along with Sanju and Yashasvi already retained,” Badale said in a media release. “Our focus was always on having a world-class XI, which is visible in the way we have gone about our business as we tried to utilize the majority of our funds on the starting XI.”
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“We’ve tried our best to also go for familiar faces, who we are excited to have at the Royals again. In terms of the international players, we’ve secured some amazing buys and I’m looking forward to seeing them in pink,” he again shared. “He’s been an integral part of our team for the past few years and grew in stature with us. But if we had gone on to retain him at Rs 9 crores, we wouldn’t have been able to build the squad we have now.”
He continued: “However, he was always on our list even though we knew he was injured for this year. We pushed as hard as we could and went all the way for him, but unfortunately lost out to a team with a larger purse. We wish Jofra the very best in his recovery and for the future.”
However, the Royals spent Rs 89.05 crores for 24 players during the two-day auction. The team is excited to have Navdeep Saini and a few experienced players like Jimmy Neesham, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rassie van der Dussen and Daryl Mitchell also.
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“In terms of having a solid base, we are absolutely happy with the purchase of Navdeep Saini. He’s an experienced player and has been regularly plying his trade with the Indian team as well, so he compliments the other experienced bowlers. I think it was a key phase for us, towards the end, to secure their signings. Jimmy and Nathan are particularly experienced when it comes to the IPL, and we feel they will add a lot of value to our side. Rassie and Daryl, as we’ve seen, can be extremely effective and are really exciting cricketers. So we’re really happy to have them all in our team,” Manoj Badale concluded.
