Bengaluru, January 20: Rajasthan Royals have released last season's captain Steve Smith along with several other players and the inaugural Indian Premier League champions have announced Sanju Samson as the skipper ahead of the IPL 2021.
Along with Samson, Royals have as expected retained the English trio of Jofra Archer, Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler. Meanwhile, Indian players like Robin Uthappa and Jaydev Undakat also joined the retained list.
Also retained by Royals were rising stars Rahul Tewatia, Riyan Parag, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Kartki Tyagi along with Shreyas Gopal, Andrew Tye, David Miller, Anuj Rawat, Mayank Markande and Manan Vohra.
Apart from Smith, the franchise has also released Tom Curran, Ankit Rajpoot, Oshane Thomas, Akash Singh, Varun Aaron, Anirudha Joshi and Shashank Singh. The franchise have also announced Kumar Sangakkara as the director of cricket ahead of the upcoming season.
Here is the full list of players retained and released by Rajasthan Royals ahead of IPL 2021:
Players Retained: Sanju Samson (captain), Robin Uthappa, Mahipal Lomror, Manan Vohra, Riyan Parag, Mayank Markande, Shreyas Gopal, Jaydev Unadkat, Kartik Tyagi, Rahul Tewatia, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj Rawat, David Miller, Jofra Archer, Andrew Tye, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler.
Players Released: Steve Smith, Varun Aaron, Oshane Thomas, Tom Curran, Ankit Rajpoot, Shashank Singh, Anirudh Joshi, Akash Singh.