Sanju Samson sheds light on Rajasthan’s auction strategy, team to ignore these players

Rajasthan skipper Sanju Samson has hinted that the franchise won’t be looking to sign retired players in the upcoming auction. Rajasthan has retained Jos Buttler, Samson, and Yashavi Jaiswal. The team will be looking to build a team for the future and hope for better results. The last time they played a playoff game was in 2018 against Kolkata.

Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes, who played for the team since 2018, are battling with injuries and opted out of the auction respectively. Retired players such as Suresh Raina, Imran Tahir, Faf du Plessis, etc are available for the auction as they were released by their teams. However, Samson said that the team will target players who can serve the team for five-to-six years.

“This auction is really important because we know we could very well be preparing our base for the next 5-6 years. So, we’ve made sure to track everyone and give the opportunity to as many players as possible during the trials. Our goal is to now target the ones we think align with our vision, can embrace our values, and help our team get back to the top,” Sanju Samson said in an official release.

Rajasthan’s director of cricket Kumar Sangakara  explained how they collected information about every players they will target during the auction. “Our analytical assessments are detailed, right from the information we’ve collected on players to getting them integrated into a central database. We further filter the data, backed with a robust analytic process which enables us to arrive at the right metrics further refining our overall player identification process. It’s really quite a comprehensive process,” said Sangakkara.