Rajasthan Royals (RR) skipper Sanju Samson feels they have assembled a “very good team in the auction” and, thus, he expects the squad to end the 13-year-long wait of winning an IPL title.
Samson was one of the three players besides Jos Buttler and Yashasvi Jaiswal to be retained by the Royals ahead of the IPL 2022 mega-auction.
During the two-day auction last month, RR roped in prominent names such as Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Devdutt Padikkal among others.
“Our main focus is to get together as soon as possible. We have a different squad this time, some new members in the team, so it is important to come together and understand your teammates,” Samson said ahead of RR’s IPL opener against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Tuesday (March 29).
“We definitely had a lot of learning from the last 2-3 seasons. We discussed and worked on a few options and we got a really very good team in the auction,” he added during a virtual press conference.
According to Samson, the inaugural IPL champions have variety in the squad this season.
“We have a lot of Indian and international strength in our team. It’s a very long tournament. We need to understand the mindset and the fitness and form of all players. But we have enough options to play around,” he said.
“I think this format has to be played with lot of fearless mindset and that sort of characters are there in this team this year. So we would just like to go out there and express ourselves.”
Earlier this month, RR signed Sri Lanka legend Lasith Malinga as the team’s bowling coach and Samson is glad to have the likes of Malinga and Kumar Sangakkara around him.
“It’s great that people like Lasith and Kumar Sangakkara (Director of Cricket) whom we have grown up watching and whom almost every cricketer admire for whatever they had done on the field. They are now just trying to help youngsters like us to understand their game better,” he said.
“Whatever chats we had with Lasith, he makes bowling look very simple and easy and that it gives a lot of clarity for every bowler in the side. He definitely is making a lot of things easier for me as a captain.”
(With PTI inputs)
