Prior to the team’s first match against Chennai Super Kings in Guwahati on Monday, Rajasthan Royals head coach and director of cricket Kumar Sangakkara stated that Riyan Parag was the ideal candidate for captaincy ahead of five others, including seasoned Ravindra Jadeja.
Assam cricketer Parag was elected captain by RR ahead of numerous older players for this IPL season, which caused a lot of controversy, particularly because the team had only won two of the eight games he had commanded the previous season. Sangakkara gave an explanation of the rationale.
“There were five candidates, including Sandeep Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja. We had very strict parameters as how we are going to choose, what is the process, so we had lots of conversations with all candidates and we realised all are very capable of captaining our side. Riyan came across as the top candidate because in all his conversations he seemed to have matured a lot,” PTI quoted Sangakkara as saying.
“He was very reflective in answering all the questions and the questions were very tough, targeted questions. Some of those questions were quite uncomfortable for all of them. Riyan with his maturity, what is vision for the side, he wanted not just to captain but to lead the team, it made him the leading candidate. We went with an open mind and gave due respect to all the players, gave all an equal chance and picked the best candidate.”
According to Sangakkara, Riyan will receive a lot of assistance from the team’s veteran players.
“Captaincy and leadership are two different things. Both are never easy. We looked at maturity, ability to reflect on themselves not just others, we look at ability to think critically, we look at how authentic they are in terms of their answers, we look at how they can influence others around them, not just young players but players who are seniors.”
Sangakkara thinks Riyan will make his fair share of errors and grow from them.
“No captain or leader is perfect. I know how many mistakes I have made. But that’s how you learn and Riyan is going to have a lot of support — Jadeja, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Sandeep Sharma, Shimron Hetmyer, Jofra Archer, Dasun Shanaka. So he has got a lot of people whom he can lean on in tough times.
Sangakkara seems pleased with RR’s choice to trade their previous captain Sanju Samson for Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran with CSK this season.
“The best trade is where both sides are happy but slightly unhappy and that’s a great trade. To be very honest we are extremely sad to see Sanju go, he has been incredible player for us, leader, captain but we knew it was inevitable that was going to happen. I think we got very very two good players, one legend in Jaddu and Sam which balances out our squad,” he said.
“Trade has helped us to balance out our side but unfortunately Sam had to pull out because of injury.”
