IPL 2023: X-Factor of Rajasthan Royals

image-lfjdybqkRajasthan Royals IPL 2022 (Source: iplt20.com)

The maiden champions of the IPL, Rajasthan Royals have since been a rather underperforming team. Though they made it to the finals last year, facing suspension and not delivering upto the expectations even after having a good team, they have seen it all. They have formed a good strong squad even this year also. They have a good mixture of players and hence a good variety of youth and experience in the team. 

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Looking at the composition of the team and the players who might make it to the final XI on a regular basis, the X-factor for the Royals this year might be Shimron Hetmyer. 



Why Shimron Hetmyer?

Hetmyer was bought by the Royals for a hefty price of INR 8.50 Cr during the auction ahead of IPL 2022. He played 15 matches for the team and batted in the lower middle-order. His job was to provide strong finishes to Royals and a strike rate of 153.92  with an average of 39.25 tells us that he that on most of the occasions. 

The Rajasthan Royals has some solid batters in the top. The Jos Buttlers, Yashaswi Jaiswals, and the Devdutt Padikkals will provide them the solidity in the beginning. But barring Buttler, the other players don't have the ability to increase the scoring rate towards the end of an innings. 

This is where Hetmyer comes in for the Royals. He will act as the bridge between a solid top-order and a rather high-entropy lower middle-order. If Hetmyer is able to stabilise in the initial of his innings then he can turn out to be very lethal towards the end. His ability to shift gears quickly makes him a really deadly player to have towards the end of an innings. 

Shimron Hetmyer's T20 Career

Shimron Hetmyer has played 156 matches in his T20 career. In these matches he has scored 3065 runs at a strike rate of 131.77 and an average of 26.20. He has a century under his belt in this format with 15 half-centuries. 

image-lfjilyhgShimron Hetmyer T20 Career (Source: OneCricket)

As we can interpret from his average that inconsistency is an issue with the West Indian. Hetmyer can go big but he fails to do it consistently. As a Royals' team management you have to account for this for players like Hetmyer, because whenever he gets going, he will win you matches. 

Saying all this, Royals will be taking heart from the fact that he has a decent average while playing for them. 

X Factor Score

Powerplay Batting Efficiency: 5.75
Middle-over Batting Efficiency: 6.7
Death-over Batting Efficiency: 9.83

Batting Efficiency Score: 22.28