Sanju Samson, the star Rajasthan Royals batsman was retained by the franchise. He led former IPL winners in the 2021 season. And, there were rumors that RR might release him ahead of the mega-auction. But that has not been the case. They announced Samson as their first retained pick at a price of INR 14 Crores. now Royals head of operations Kumar Sangakkara has come up with a clarification that Sanju Samson was always there one of the top picks as RR was looking forward to the long future of the franchise.
Sangakkara on retaining Sanju Samson at INR 14 Crores
Under Sanju Samson’s captaincy, RR won 5 games out of 14 and finished on 7th position in the 2021 season. Although, the season didn’t go down well for the franchise. But, Samson kept performing with the bat by producing some of the remarkable performances with the bat. He scored 484 runs in 14 games played at a brilliant strike rate of 136.72.
In an interview, Kumar Sangakkara said that RR management worked closely with the analytic team in order to come to a conclusion. As per him, Samson was an obvious pick for them as far as retention is concerned. He added that RR is banking upon as a skipper going into the future of the Indian Premier League. Also, former Sri Lankan wicketkeepers praised Indian glovemen.
“We worked really hard in terms of working with our newly-formed data analytic team, with the help of all our partners in India and in the US, we finally decided, of course, Sanju Samson, it was a no-brainer in terms of being our captain, number one. He is going to be the long-term leader of this unit of Rajasthan Royals. He is an exceptional player and he has shown time and time again what a wonderful asset he has been for RR,” said Kumar Sangakkara in a video posted by RR.
“We have retained Yashasvi Jaiswal, the young Indian opener, an absolute star in the making, he had a very very good season pre-retention, extremely talented. He is a very very quick learner, he is a hard worker and he will be our uncapped retention,” added Sangakkara on RR’s young prospect Yashasvi Jaiswal.
