IPL 2022 | Kumar Sangakkara reveals his plans for the next season

Rajasthan Royals (RR) finished as the runners-up in the recently-concluded season of Indian Premier League (IPL). The Orange and Purple Cap holders, Jos Buttler and Yuzvendra Chahal are from the Royals. Also, they have used their players quite well. 

RR's Director of Cricket, Kumar Sangakkara, has revealed their plans for the upcoming season. He also stated that they want more from the specialist batters other than Buttler and Sanju Samson, especially the young Riyan Parag, and he will actively work towards it.

"I think we have got a lot of improvement to do in all areas really. If you really take our batting, we had huge contributions from Jos, contributions from Sanju, and Shimron Hetmyer in the early stages. Riyan and Devdutt [Padikkal] played well in patches, but in terms of overall performance, we need a little bit from the support-role players,” Sangakkara said at the post-match press conference.

"I think Riyan Parag has got a huge amount of potential, and I think we have got to work him into a higher batting number by the time we come in next season. I look forward to grooming him to become more of a kind of an early-middle-order player rather than just a death hitter because I think he is so accomplished against spin and pace. I think overall we have the purple cap, the orange cap, and as a team, we played extremely well. And I thought from the time we started the tournament to now, the guys have put in an amazing effort, so I am very, very proud," the veteran further added. 

However, Parag faced just 132 balls in 14 innings this IPL season. His longest innings was his 31-ball 56 not out against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Pune. During the season, although they tried with Daryl Mitchell and James Neesham, that didn't help their bowling attack and eventually, they played with their five best bowlers, leaving the batters to adjust in the playing XI. 

That put extra pressure on Buttler with the extra responsibility to bat through, which left the extra pressure on Samson and Yashasvi Jaiswal too to bat quickly so that Buttler's slower starts could be adjusted well in the 20 overs. Notably, in the final, the Royals scored 59 for 1 in eight overs, which Sanga thought was a good score once they had decided to bat upon winning only their fourth toss of the season.

"We were debating whether to put them in first as well. By the time we arrived at the ground, we looked at the pitch, it was pretty dry. And we thought it will get slower and maybe offer a little bit of turn for our spinners. So we expected to get about 160-165. We were really well-set in our batting innings: 70 for 1 at halfway mark. Then Sanju got out and then Hardik [Pandya] came on and bowled some beautiful overs and we let Gujarat back into the game,” Sangakkara concluded.