PBKS said that they wanted to retain Rahul, but the player wanted to go into auction.
Former New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori on Friday (December 3) said that the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Punjab Kings (PBKS) are underperforming teams where players do not want to return for the IPL 2022.
He also believes that Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Punjab Kings (PBKS) failed to retain some of their best players ahead of the mega IPL 2022 auction because the international stars like Ben Stokes and KL Rahul didn’t want to return to an "underperforming" team.
Notably, RR retained their captains, Sanju Samson (INR 14 crores), Jos Buttler (INR 10 crores), and Yashasvi Jaiswal (INR 4 crores), while PBKS retained Mayank Agarwal (INR 12 crores) and Arshdeep Singh (INR 4 crores) ahead of the mega IPL action in 2022.
Reacting to the IPL retention, Vettori said that RR might have wanted to retain Stokes, but the England all-rounder may have wanted a fresh challenge and opted to go into the auction pool.
On the other hand, the PBKS has already confirmed that Rahul wanted to move on.
Vettori told ESPNcricinfo: “For franchises like Rajasthan and Kings who have been underperforming and perennially out of the playoffs, players don't always want to come back. They want to explore the opportunities and potentially go to a winning franchise.
So someone like Stokes could be that sort of player who may have been in Rajasthan's plans but might have wanted a fresh challenge, a new scenery, and a chance to go to a team that has done well in the past.”
However, the former RCB player and coach also felt that "injury and workload" could be a factor in Rajasthan deciding not to go ahead with Jofra Archer and Stokes for the IPL 2022.
He signed off by saying, “That could be one scenario. The other factor is just his injury and workload concerns and that he and Archer play so much cricket, how are they going to be available for full seasons and we have seen in the past that they haven't been so I am sure that those things play a part.”