Rajasthan Royals

Rajasthan Royals is a franchise cricket team based in Jaipur that plays in the IPL. The team is led and coached by Shane Warne. The team's mascot is a lion named Moochu Singh. The team anthem, 'Halla Bol' is sung by Ila Arun. The promotional video that 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 in 2008.

Franchise History

The Rajasthan Royals franchise is owned by Emerging Media group and is Chaired by Manoj Badale. Other investors include Lachlan Murdoch, Aditya S Chellaram and Suresh Chellaram. The Group acquired the franchise for $67 million. Incidentally, this was the least expensive franchise in the Indian Premier League and probably the least fancied team in the league at the beginning of the tournament. Bollywood actress and Celebrity Big Brother winner Shilpa Shetty and her business partner (now husband) Raj Kundra paid approximately US $15.4 million for a 11.7% stake before the start of IPL 2 in early 2009, therefore valuing the team at $130 million.

It made a pre-tax profit of $7.5 million in 2009.

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.

The Rajasthan Royals became the winner of the first IPL tournament, when they defeated the Chennai Super Kings by 3 wickets in the final played on 1 June 2008. With the scores level with one ball remaining, Sohail Tanvir scored the winning run and therefore prevented the match from being decided on a bowl out.Royals became the best team, with the best coach.

Each player and representative on the team was awarded a medal and the team was presented with the DLF Indian Premier League trophy along with a cheque for US$ 1.2 million prize money. Many of the Royals' players also took home individual awards for their performance during the tournament; Yusuf Pathan claimed the Man of the Match award for the final match, Sohail Tanvir finished the tournament in possession of the Purple Cap (the IPL's leading wicket taker) and Australian all-rounder Shane Watson was declared the Man of the Series.

2009 IPL Season

The Royals did not have a good start during the 2009 season. In their opening game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore, who were second last in 2008, the Royals obtained the lowest score in the tournaments history. Rajasthan started to gain momentum slowly with Yusuf Pathan's explosive performances in victories against Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils giving hope to the Royals and their fans. However, inconsistency became a major factor; much was expected of South African captain Graeme Smith who was playing in front of his home crowd and who in last season's scored 441 runs, he together with Swapnil Asnodkar were not able to string together strong consistent performances. The absence of previous year's stars Sohail Tanvir and Shane Watson was also a major factor. Tanvir was not eligible in this season due to the political strain between India and Pakistan, and Watson was called up to play for Australia in the series against Pakistan in the UAE. Many also considered the sending of Mohammad Kaif back to India a poor decision as his batting could have contributed to the team's batting performance. The Royals failed to make it to the semifinals after losing their last two matches against Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders.

2010 IPL Season

Rajasthan started the season looking to emulate their success in 2008 but suffered a three game losing streak at the start of the tournament. They bounced back well with a four game winning streak but they were knocked out after a defeat against the Kolkata Knight Riders in their final game of the third season of the IPL.

Players

Rajasthan Royals were the least active franchise during the players auction. The team didn't 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 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 was named the coach and the captain of the side. The Royals were unique during the 2008 season as they were the only side to have an English cricketer in their squad, Hampshire's all rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas who only played one match, against the Delhi Daredevils in Jaipur on 11 May, before returning back to England. The Rajasthan Royals also selected Justin Langer and Morne Morkel in the player auction, but both declined to instead play county cricket.In 2009 Season the team has cut down six Indian players from the previous years squad. They are batsman Mohammad Kaif and other relatively unknowns Dinesh Salunkhe, Anup Revandkar, Srideep Mangela, Ashraf Makda and Azhar Malik.