Rajasthan Royals is a franchise cricket team that represents the state of Rajasthan in the IPL. The team is led and coached by Shane Warne. There is no Icon Player and brand ambassador for the team and it is also the only IPL team to have a foreign player being both the Coach and Captain. The team's mascot is a lion named Moochu Singh. The team anthem, 'Halla Bol' is sung by Ila Arun[2]. The promotional video that they aired on national networks before and during the first edition of the IPL was directed by Indrajit Nattoji of Blink Pictures. Leicestershire spinner Jeremy Snape signed on with the Rajasthan Royals as their high-performance coach and team psychologist. They became the champions of the inaugural IPL tournament.
The Rajasthan Royals franchise is owned by Emerging Media group. The group acquired the franchise for $67 million.
2008 IPL Season
Prior to the start of the inaugural IPL season, many considered the Royals as possibly the weakest team in the IPL, giving them little chance of competing well in the tournament. Evidence of the latter opinion seemed to be confirmed when the team lost its first match against the Delhi Daredevils in a 9 wicket loss. However the Royals won their next game by defeating the Kings XI Punjab and continued to win the next five games in a row. The Royals built up an impressive 11-3 record after their fourteen premilinary round matches; this included a consecutive 5-game and 6-game winning streak with an undefeated record on their home ground and a spot at the top of the points table. They were also the first team to book a place in the semifinals with their 65 run win over the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Shane Warne's captaincy and simultaneous coaching was praised and well received by everyone, including opposition teams. In addition, many players of the Royals team had consistently played well. The Royals secured a place in the finals with a victory against the Delhi Daredevils.
Rajasthan Royals Players
Rajasthan Royals was the least active franchise during the player auction. The team does not have a designated icon player, which saved a lot of cap space for the franchise.
However the franchise was surprisingly low key during the auction, and in the end got penalized by the IPL organizing committee for failing to meet the minimum bidding criteria of $3.3 million.
The highest bid by Rajasthan Royals was for the Indian middle order batsman Mohammad Kaif, who came off the board at $675,000. Shane Warne has been named the coach and captain of the side. The Royals are unique as they are the only side to have an English cricketer in their squad, Hampshire's all rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas.
Rajasthan Royals is a franchise cricket team that represents the state of Rajasthan in the IPL. The team is led and coached by Shane Warne. There is no Icon Player and brand ambassador for the team and it is also the only IPL team to have a foreign player being both the Coach and Captain. The team's mascot is a lion named Moochu Singh. The team anthem, 'Halla Bol' is sung by Ila Arun[2]. The promotional video that they aired on national networks before and during the first edition of the IPL was directed by Indrajit Nattoji of Blink Pictures. Leicestershire spinner Jeremy Snape signed on with the Rajasthan Royals as their high-performance coach and team psychologist. They became the champions of the inaugural IPL tournament.
