Rajasthan Royals : Proverbial Underdogs ready to bite in IPL 6

Who doesn't like the underdogs ? And when it happens to be Rajasthan Royals (RR), the likeability factor increases that much more. Easily the most frugal amongst all the teams in IPL, their modus operandi for all these years has been rather simple - Gamble with youngsters (in what they consider as potential match-winners) picked up rather cheap and hope they will fire.  Add a couple of elder statesman of the game  who are past their sell by date in the international arena and dare I add unwanted in any other franchise, buy unheralded foreign players (mostly Australian) who are not even established T-20 stars and retain someone, may I add just one, whom they consider their lynchpin in Shane Watson.  And of course make one amongst the grey haired players as the captain. And RR is all set to fight it out in the IPL edition.

While the unheralded and surreal success in the first edition of the IPL, under the astute leadership of Shane Warne made the whole cricket community stand up and take notice of the team, their performance in the years gone by (Rajasthan have failed to finish higher than sixth in the last four editions) has all but ensured  that memories of that triumph have become foggy; a distant achievement that seems more like a dream. Since then, Shane Warne has passed on the captaincy baton to another veteran in Rahul Dravid.

While it is true that being thrifty has been the norm of the franchise, their tactical blunder of letting go of their star all-rounders in Yusuf Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja has hit them badly. Also their reluctance in picking T-20 specialists has made Rajasthan Royals, for the past couple of seasons, look like a team content in making up the numbers.

However, all that is set to change in the ongoing edition of the IPL. For starters, their ever dependable all-rounder Shane Watson is available for the entirety of the IPL season, unlike ever before. Trinidadian Kevin Cooper, for whom the last IPL edition was nothing less than a fairytale has successfully recovered from his knee fracture and is available for selection. The acquisition of James Faulkner who has lately been in sensational form, helping Tasmania to the Sheffield Shield title is undoubtedly going to add more teeth to their fragile bowling attack. In Shaun Tait, Samuel Badree and Siddharth Trivedi  along with Indian cricket's enfant terrible S. Sreesanth also in the mix, Rajasthan Royals' bowling arsenal looks as good as any team this time around.

Ajinkya Rahane and skipper Rahul Dravid again hold the aces when it comes to their batting. They emerged as a magnificent opening pair and provided them solid starts in most of the matches, in the last edition. While Dravid's achievements in IPL 5 were noteworthy, Rahane is their best bet after Shane Watson provided he gets his mojo back quickly. In Brad Hodge and Owais Shah they have two veteran Twenty20 batsman who can absorb pressure and accelerate the innings.

With the inclusion of some fine domestic talent in Sanju Samson, Rahul Shukla, Sachin Baby and Harmeet Singh, the team is already starting to show that it has buried the ghosts of the past editions.

Having already fashioned convincing victories (three victories in four matches) against more fancied oppositions, Rajastan Royals couldn't have hoped for a much better start in IPL 6. With the momentum clearly with the Men in Blue so early in the tournament, one is compelled to say that though history has an uncanny habit of repeating itself, will it be this time for Rajasthan Royals. Only time will tell..