Rajasthan Royals were jolted with the absence of Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer and Jos Buttler in IPL 2021. As a result, the team finished with just 10 points at the end of 14 matches. They ended up at the seventh spot with 5 wins and 9 losses. Rajasthan suffered big collapses in both their last two matches as they lost all their hopes of a playoff qualification.
Their last match came against Kolkata Knight Riders when the team was bundled out for just 85 while chasing 172 and lost the match by a massive margin of 86 runs.
Captain Sanju Samson, who was Rajasthan's top run scorer in the season with 484 runs at a strike rate of 136.72, was clearly disappointed with the team's performances at the end of the season.
"I think to be very honest it was a better wicket. It was staying a little low with the new ball but it was a better wicket. 171 was chaseable on this wicket. I think we wanted to get a good start. We needed a powerful powerplay. We wanted to execute whatever we planned but we didn't execute. I think if you look at the whole season, we have gone through many challenges. We showed character though and am proud of the boys. We won some close games and lost some easy ones."
"We need to play a better standard of cricket to win more games in this tournament. Everyone came up with positive vibes, People were ready to go out there and win games for us. Being the skipper, I changed the way I look at my innings. It was always about thinking about the match situations. I would have loved to win more games despite scoring a lot of runs."
Rajasthan have not been able to discover their real personality. For example, we know that Mumbai Indians play an explosive brand of cricket and that Chennai Super Kings make the most of their resources and play a very consistent brand of the game.
Rajasthan on the other and have been neither here nor there. It has also been unfortunate for them that the players which they have put their might behind have not been able to perform. Chris Morris for instance was the most expensive player of 2021 but failed to fire.
All in all, the last few seasons have been a massive disappointment for Rajasthan.
