Let’s play a fun little game called: Guess who Rajasthan Royals let go ahead of the IPL 2025 auction.
Spoiler alert: it’s half their match-winning XI. Jos Buttler, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Prasidh Krishna and a few others.
Where are they now, you ask?
Jos Buttler is chilling comfortably in the Top 5 run-scorers list like it's his living room.
Prasidh Krishna? Oh, nothing major—he’s just the joint-highest wicket-taker of IPL 2025. Casual.
Chahal and Boult? They’ve been casually pulling match-winning spells like pulling rabbits out of a hat. Magic hi samajh lo.
Ab zara dekhte hain ki RR ne retain kinko kiya tha. Sanju Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Riyan Parag – the holy trinity. Inka chalo samajh mein aata hai.
But ₹14 crore for Dhruv Jurel and ₹11 crore for Shimron Hetmyer?
Bhai, koi logic hai is baat mein? Magar Rajasthan ko bohoot lag raha tha.
Chalo pehle Jurel ki baat kar lete hain. He had a promising start to the season when he smashed a fiery 70 against SRH. Fans thought, "Bas bhai, naya star mil gaya!"
But the next 7 innings? No less than a nightmare. Sirf 121 runs. Itna toh meme pages ban gaye the uske naam pe.
Then came the big stage: a must-win match against RCB. 206 ka chase tha but Jurel started like a tortoise: 18 off his first 23 balls. RR fans were already typing tweets—“Why him over Buttler?”
Some went so far as to say, "Perfect fit for India's Test squad. Like Cheteshwar Pujara 2.0."
Yes, he did score 29 off the next 11 balls, par tab tak train nikal chuki thi platform se. RR lost, and fans lost it.
Aur ab baat karte hain Hetmyer ki.
Last season mein 12 matches, sirf 113 runs, phir bhi retain? This year so far: 9 matches, 187 runs—52 of them in one game.
Baki 8 matches? Silence so loud. Average? Just 23.3.
In short, his failures are one of the big reasons why Rajasthan have become a laughing stock when it comes to run chases this season.
However, there's always a redemption arc out there somewhere. And if both Jurel and Hetmyer can discover it, suddenly, the critics, including me, who are writing them off, will have to delete their scripts and scramble to pretend they always believed in them.
Till then, RR fans can only hope.
