Royals look up to Warne for resurgence

New Delhi: After the pre-season auction of the first edition of the tournament in 2008, many brushed the Rajasthan Royals off as the weakest team in the tournament. While all the other teams went star hunting, Rajasthan's team owners looked content with star gazing.
Exhibiting their unconditional love for antiques, the franchisee bought retired warhorses like Shane Warne, Justin Langer and Darren Lehman, and topped it up with India discards like Mohammad Kaif.

The experts and the soothsayers saw the writing on the wall. If the customary stamp was needed, Royals started their campaign with a nine-wicket loss against Delhi.
But the prognosticators of the impending doom were too foolish to ignore the man at the helm of this team's affairs. And that is where the calculation went wrong.
The stars bowed, experts were left awestruck and astrology went out of the window. The weakest and the least costly team on paper went on to win six matches in a row and then followed it up with another five in a row, ending the tournament with 11 wins and three losses from 14 group matches.
Some scintillating performances, nail-biting finishes and there they were holding the first IPL trophy aloft.
Warne re-established himself as 'the best captain Australia never had' and the bunch of nobodies became overnight heroes.
It was all parable; Shane Watson’s re-birth, Tanveer establishing himself as a potent force and players like Kamran Khan and Swapnil Asnodkar becoming known faces for cricket fans.
The succeeding seasons started with obvious hype but barring a few individual performances and ephemeral glimpses of past glory, 2009 and 2010 ended on sorry notes.
In the 2011 auctions, the Rajasthan franchise was dormant again. Although they made a wise decision by retaining Warne and Watson, there were no major buys.
They continued their liaison with the veteran cricketers and lapped up players like Rahul Dravid and Akash Chopra.
Bowling remains almost unchanged from the previous year and will be led by the inimitable Warne along with fast bowler Shaun Tait. Apart from that, all-rounders Shane Watson, Johan Botha, Paul Collingwood and Indian Test hopeful Pankaj Singh will have to deliver the goods.
But scant bowling resources shouldn't be a worry for the Royals whose line of utility players are more than capable of chipping in with timely performances.
Moreover, who knows more stars might be waiting to come out of this team's womb.
The major cause of worry is their batting which looks depleted without Pathan, Graeme Smith, Asnodkar, Naman Ojha, etc.
In this situation, onus will be on the proven performer Shane Watson and new signings Ross Taylor, Paul Collingwood and Rahul Dravid.
The spark of a swashbuckler like Yusuf Pathan or a contributor like Ravindra Jadeja will be sorely and surely missed. But with coach-cum-captain Warne's charisma, one just can't take the Royals lightly.
Squad:
Rahul Dravid, Pankaj Singh, Aakash Chopra, Abhishek Raut, Aditya Dole, Ajinkya Rahane, Amit Paunikar, Ashok Menaria, Deepak Chahar, Dishant Yagnik, Faiz Fazal, Nayan Doshi, Pinal Shah, Samad Fallah, Siddharth Trivedi, Stuart Binny, Amit Singh, Dinesh Salunkhe, Swapnil Asnodkar, Sumit Narwal, Ankeet Chavan (Foreign) Shane Warne, Shane Watson, Ross Taylor, Johan Botha, Paul Collingwood, Shaun Tait

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