This year was special in the IPL for the English cricket and its players. There was record attendance by the English players in the IPL with as many as 12 players taking part in the competition. Along with Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler, there were many smaller names also taking parts such as Tom Curran and Mark Wood. With the Test series starting now, the chosen players will be making their way back to England.
England is scheduled to play a Test series with Pakistan which begins from 25th May hence the selected players have been told to report in England on 17th May. Wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler and the all-rounder Ben Stokes have been selected in the Test squad and have already left their IPL team Rajasthan Royals.
Rajasthan Royal will be half the team they were in the presence of Jos Buttler. Since he was sent to open, he smacked five consecutive half-centuries out of which two fetched him Man of the Match award. His batting was extremely crucial at the top with no one else standing up.
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One of the disappointments this season for RR was the lack of match-winning performances from Ben Stokes. He was the Man of the tournament last year and the most expensive buy in this year’s auction. His batting lacked the glory that he is able to pull off, he returned with good bowling figures in the last match.
With these two out, Rajasthan will be in a spot of bother and it puts their chances of qualifying for the playoffs under a great danger. These were the two big names they were possessing and with rest of the players struggling, RR has lost a big hope. Still, they have no option but to recover from it.
The likely replacements for these two are the Australian pair of D’Arcy Short and Ben Laughlin. Both have been tried by RR in the previous matches but have failed to perform as expected.
The opener D’Arcy Short was persisted for too long by Rajasthan but he failed to deliver. In the 7 matches that he has played, he has scored only 115 runs at a meager average of 16.42. His slow batting has harmed RR more than his runs have benefitted. Now they have to go back to him.
Rajasthan has also tried the pace bowler Ben Laughlin before Jofra Archer was fit but he failed to make an impact. In the five matches that he played, he took 5 wickets at an economy of 10.16. The below-par showing threw him out. It’s now up to these two to make Rajasthan does not miss Stokes-Buttler.
