The player’s former team revealed the reasons why he was traded to the Delhi Capitals.
Despite the 2020 season of the Indian Premier League still being months away, there have already been developments. A testament to this claim will be the IPL auction which will see teams in a figurative ‘war’ over players to round out their roster. The auction will be held on December 19. All eight teams in the IPL performed an in-depth analysis. Afterwards, they decided which players to keep and release from their roster.
Ahead of the auction, Ajinkaya Rahane, who has played for the Rajasthan Royals for many years, was traded to the Delhi Capitals. Rahane has been one of the most well-received and best-performing players for the Royals, and he also had a good 2019 season in the IPL. He scored 393 runs in 14 games at a decent average of 32.75, including an unbeaten 105* against Delhi Capitals.
Despite being a statistically great player, the Rajasthan Royals have decided to let go of their reliable veteran who also served as captain in 24 games between 2011 and 2019. No matter how important to the team, he was traded to the Delhi Capitals for leg-spinners- Mayank Markande and Rahul Tewatia.
Compared to other players, Rahane doesn’t have the freedom to play in different formats other than Tests because other players were drafted to fill his role in other formats. Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting had also stressed on the fact that management signed Rahane because of his massive experience and his immense potential to do well.
When asked why the Royal’s management decided to let go of Rahane, Jake Lush McCrum, Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the Royals, said that they are already ‘well-equipped with a lot of openers’ while adding that they wanted to ‘focus on fixing the leak in the leg-spin department’.
Ajinkya Rahane is a Royals legend and will always be a member of our family. He is an exceptionally talented cricketer, whose century last year was one of the best performances of IPL 2019, and we wish him all the best in Delhi. The reason for the trade was due to our excessive number of quality openers, compared to our lack of depth in the leg-spin department, which we have all seen is incredibly important’.
‘Both Markande and Tewatia have performed in the IPL and we believe they can add significant value to the team this year. Tewatia also has the ability to bat big late on in an innings which is very valuable’.
Tests are the longest format in the game of cricket with a single match usually lasting four days. To find out more about Tests and other cricket formats, visit Betwala’s page.
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