IPL Auction 2018: Despite getting Ben Stokes, a moderate day 1 for Rajasthan Royals

Rajasthan Royals took a clean break from its past strategy of going for bits and pieces unheralded players. On Day 1 of the auction, it went for some of the players who have made waves in recent times. So in a way, their selection got much appreciation on Twitter. But an IPL team is also about the nuts and bolts players, whose performance is often the difference between an average and champion teams. On Saturday, Rajasthan Royals showed no real intent to get such utility Indian cricketers,

Before the auction they retained Steve Smith, who will be the captain in all likelihood. During the auction, it used RTM to get Ajinkya Rahane, who has played a large part of his IPL career for the Royals.

It virtually gave its all to get Ben Stokes, in a bid to replace the hole left by Shane Watson. Stokes was bought for Rs 12.5 crore, money well spent.

The rest of the auction strategy though was perplexing. RR just couldn’t get going during the auction and ended up buying only 8 player . Two of them are BBL stars, D’arcy Short and Joffra Archer. Rahul Tripathi, Sanju Samson and Jos Butler are …read more