May 5th, 2009 
Aman 
Rajasthan Royals Coached and captained by former Australian charismatic player Shane Warne, Rajasthan Royals is owned by the UK based media group Emerging Media. Emerging India had bought this team for $67 million but later on Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and her boyfriend Raj Kundra had bought 12 per cent stake in it. In the maiden version of IPL Rajasthan Royals was being considered as the weakest team as compared to the other seven teams. But Shane Warne’s charismatic leadership turned it into a strong unit and left everyone stunned and surprised when it defeated all the other IPL T20 teams one by one and clinched the trophy. Except Shane Warne, Yusuf Pathan is one of its icon players who have the guts to turn the tide in its favor.
New Players Rajasthan Royals had added three new players, Rob Quiney, Shane Harwood & Lee Carseldine to replace Sohail Tanveer and Kamran Akmal. All these players are Australian national and play for various Australian national level teams. Rob Quiney is an explosive batsman while Shane Harwood is a right-arm fast bowler. Lee Carseldine has been added as an all rounder. He is a left-arm medium pace bowler. Another Indian player, Kamran Khan had been recently been added into the squad and Shane Warne had termed him as a ‘watch out’ player into the upcoming T20 tournament. His words proved out to be true when Kamran turned the tide into his team’s favor when he dismissed Kolkata Knight Riders captain Sourav Ganguly in the last moments of the game. That match ended into a draw and was decided on the basis of ‘super over’. This match was played between both the teams in Cape Town on April 23 and proved out to be a ‘nerve wrecking match’ as Kolkata Knight Riders lost an ‘almost won’ match.
Squad In the second version of IPL t20 tournament ‘desi’ players has performed well for Rajasthan Royals as compared to the overseas players. All the three Indian players, Yusuf Pathan, Ravinder Jadeja and Kamran Khan have performed consistently well for their side in all the matches. Yusuf Pathan is famous for his explosive batting but Kamran Khan and Ravinder Jadeja have also turned out to be match winners. Rajasthan Royals had announced its squad on April 15, 2009 following which six players had been axed from the squad and returned to India. This movement turned out to be a big controversy and team management was criticized for their ‘untimely action’. The players who had been ‘forcibly’ returned to India are, Mohammed Kaif, Srideep Manghela, Dinesh Salunkhe, Ashraf Makra, Paras dogra, Anup Rengnekar and Ahad Malik. It must be learnt that Mohammed Kaif used to be an important member of the Indian Cricket Team, a few months ago.
Performance Lee Carseldine, Mahesh Rawat, Morne Morke, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Shaun Tait, Justin Langer, Robert Quiney and Graeme Smith are some other key players in the Rajasthan Royals squad. It must be learnt that last year’s star player of the tournament Shane Watson could not join the team as he had been ruled out because of injuries. Till May, 5 Rajasthan Royals had played eight matches and have won four. They could not give a winning start to their side in the 2009 version of IPL T20. Rajasthan Royals’ performance in the opening match was not comparable to the expected standards but as the tournament progressed, team changed a lot. Now it has turned into a strong unit and nobody can rule out the possibility of repetition of its previous years’ performance.
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