RR retained three players including captain Sanju Samson.
Kumar Sangakkara, the Director of Cricket Operations for Rajasthan Royals (RR), revealed the reason behind releasing their two superstars Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes ahead of the next edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2022).
On Tuesday (November 30) night, the eight IPL franchises announced their list of retained players ahead of the mega IPL 2022 auction.
England’s Archer and Stokes, who are known as two of the biggest superstars of the game, were expected to be retained but their franchise RR surprised the fans and experts by releasing them.
For the upcoming IPL 15, RR opted to retain their captain Sanju Samson (INR 14 crores), wicketkeeper-batter Jos Buttler (INR 10 crores), and the uncapped opener Yashasvi Jaiswal (INR 4 crores).
Read Also: IPL 2022: Rajasthan Royals (RR) – list of retained players
After the IPL 2022 retention process on Tuesday, Sangakkara explained the reason behind opting to let Jofra and Archer go to the auction pool in a video uploaded by RR on Twitter.
Sangakkara said, “It’s extremely difficult. They are two of the best players in the world at the moment. Ben Stokes is the best all-rounder I have seen in a very long time. [He's] an absolute match-winner and he has shown that for Rajasthan Royals.
He is absolutely brilliant as a team man, brilliant in a leadership role. He just brings his amazing energy to the field. We had to consider the number of retentions possible. Player availability, in terms of how much of the tournament that a player is available for.”
He added, “It's the same with Jofra. We did everything to ascertain the nature of the injury, the recovery period. There hasn't been a phenomenon like Jofra Archer in any form of cricket, especially T20 cricket. And I know the players themselves understand our reasoning, even though they may be disappointed. I am sure they are, as we are as a franchise. All these dynamics come into play.
Notably, Stokes played 8 matches in 2020, scoring 285 and bagging mere 2 wickets and in the last season, the all-rounder only played one before sustaining a finger injury. Archer scalped 14 wickets in 14 matches in 2020 but didn't feature in a single game in the IPL 2021 due to a long injury layoff.