Twelve months ago, the Rajasthan Royals were the team everyone felt sorry for. Ninth place, four wins from fourteen, a captain who quietly told the franchise he was emotionally drained and wanted out. This year, they traded that captain to Chennai Super Kings for two World Cup winners, handed the armband to a 24-year-old who’d never led a full season, brought back Kumar Sangakkara as head coach, and somehow turned the whole thing into the best story of IPL 2026.

Fourth in the league stage. A thumping Eliminator win over Sunrisers Hyderabad. One Shubman Gill masterclass away from a maiden second IPL final. A 15-year-old batter who broke Chris Gayle’s all-time six-hitting record and somehow still has two more years of being a teenager left in him.

[sportzclaus_poll player=”Vaibhav Suryavanshi” team=”RR” poll_id=”vaibhav_rr_2026″]

It is, by some distance, the best 12-month turnaround any IPL franchise has produced in years. Which makes what comes next slightly counterintuitive: success doesn’t actually make the IPL 2027 mini-auction calls easier for Rajasthan Royals. If anything, it complicates them. Some gambles paid off spectacularly and need backing again, gambles that quietly didn’t and need correcting, and one genuinely awkward situation involving a marquee all-rounder who never bowled a ball for the franchise all season.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of who’s likely to go, who’s staying, and what RR’s auction strategy could look like ahead of IPL 2027.

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Rajasthan Royals (RR) IPL 2026 campaign overview

The headline move of RR’s entire year happened before a ball was bowled. Sanju Samson, captain since 2021 and the face of the franchise for over a decade, was traded to Chennai Super Kings in exchange for Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran, one of the biggest deals in IPL history. Donovan Ferreira arrived separately from the Delhi Capitals. Kumar Sangakkara took over as head coach and director of cricket, and the captaincy went to Riyan Parag, who’d filled in for an injured Samson for eight games the previous year.

Read also CricketSunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) Released Players List for IPL 2027

It could easily have blown up in their faces. Instead, Rajasthan finished the league stage fourth with eight wins from fourteen, then beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 47 runs in the Eliminator on the back of a 29-ball 97 from Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. The dream ended in Qualifier 2, where Gujarat Titans chased down 215 with seven wickets and eight balls to spare, Shubman Gill making an effortless century to send GT into the final against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, who went on to win it, completing back-to-back titles. RR finished third overall, their best campaign since the 2022 final.

StatisticIPL 2026 Numbers
Matches Played (League)14
Wins / Losses (League)8 / 6
League Points16
League Stage Finish4th
Playoff ResultsWon Eliminator (vs SRH)
Lost Qualifier 2 (vs GT)
Final Position3rd
Most RunsVaibhav Sooryavanshi (776 @ SR 237.30)
Most WicketsJofra Archer (24)

The Sooryavanshi numbers genuinely don’t need much embellishment. 776 runs in 16 matches at a strike rate north of 237, a season that broke Chris Gayle’s record for most sixes in a single T20 tournament, a 36-ball century against Sunrisers Hyderabad, and a clean sweep of the Orange Cap, MVP, Emerging Player, Super Striker and Super Sixes awards at the post-season ceremony.

He’s 15. He still has the option of playing Under-19 cricket for India. Jofra Archer, meanwhile, quietly had arguably his best IPL season with bat and ball, finishing as RR’s leading wicket-taker, while Dhruv Jurel’s calm 75* against Gujarat Titans in a tense run-chase underlined why the franchise has trusted him since he was a teenager.

Not everything clicked, though. Sam Curran never got off the ground. Shimron Hetmyer, RR’s designated finisher for four seasons running, had arguably his quietest IPL campaign. And Tushar Deshpande, who arrived with a CSK title pedigree, found Indian pitches significantly less forgiving in maroon than they’d been in yellow.

High-Profile players RR are likely to release

RR’s purse situation heading into IPL 2027 isn’t remotely like the Mumbai Indians’ or Hardik Pandya’s franchise-in-crisis story. The Royals don’t need a fire sale. But a handful of contracts no longer make obvious sense, and freeing them up gives Sangakkara’s group something they didn’t have much of in December 2025: actual choice at the auction table.

Sam Curran: ₹2.40 Crore

This is the strangest storyline of RR’s season, and not in a good way. Curran was meant to be the headline addition from the Samson trade, a genuine value pick at ₹2.40 crore given his white-ball pedigree. Instead, he pulled out before a ball was bowled, citing a groin injury he said he’d been managing since England’s run to the T20 World Cup semi-final. Dasun Shanaka was parachuted in as his replacement on March 23, a move that ended up costing Shanaka a year-long PSL ban for walking out on Lahore Qalandars at short notice.

Then, in the final week of May, with RR still alive in the playoffs, Curran turned out for Surrey in the T20 Blast — as a specialist batter, scoring 141 runs in three innings, their leading run-scorer. Kumar Sangakkara didn’t hide his frustration after RR’s Qualifier 2 exit, saying the franchise had been told Curran’s injury was season-ending and that seeing him back in county colours within weeks was “disappointing”.

Read also CricketKolkata Knight Riders (KKR) Probable Released Players List for IPL 2027

Should they retain or release this player?

At ₹2.40 crore, the financial stakes aren’t huge either way. But trust, once it’s publicly questioned by your own head coach, it’s hard to fully repair. A clean break looks more likely than not.

Shimron Hetmyer: ₹11 Crore

Hetmyer has been RR’s designated finisher since 2022, a position that earned him 314 runs at a strike rate near 154 in his first season at the franchise and a runners-up medal that year. He arrived at IPL 2026 in good touch too, having struck 248 runs at a strike rate of 186 for West Indies at the T20 World Cup just weeks earlier.

None of that carried over. RR’s team management publicly backed him through a slow start in April, insisting it was too early to panic. It never really turned. His final league-stage match brought 6 off 7 against the Gujarat Titans, and across the campaign, he managed only a fraction of his usual output, with Donovan Ferreira and the late-season addition Dasun Shanaka increasingly preferred in the finisher’s slot during the run to the playoffs.

Should they retain or release this player?

Four years of genuine service and several match-winning cameos earn him the benefit of the doubt in most years. At ₹11 crore for a finisher who’s lost his spot in the XI, though, this looks like the retention RR can least afford to repeat on reputation alone.

[sportzclaus_poll player=”Hetmyer” team=”RR” poll_id=”hetmyer_rr_2026″]

Tushar Deshpande: ₹6.50 Crore

Deshpande arrived from CSK off the back of a title-winning 2023, where he picked up 21 wickets, and RR paid accordingly. The returns since have gone the wrong way, with a difficult 2025 and an IPL 2026 where he managed only a handful of wickets across the season at an economy that occasionally tipped past 13 an over. He went for 55 in his final outing against Sunrisers Hyderabad, and by the back half of the season, Brijesh Sharma, on a fraction of the salary, was the one trusted with the new ball and the death overs instead.

There were moments, a composed final over to seal a thriller against the Gujarat Titans was a reminder of what he can still do under pressure. But ₹6.50 crore is a lot to carry for a swing bowler who’s lost the swing on Indian surfaces two seasons running.

Lhuan-dre Pretorius: ₹30 Lakh

The third-choice gloveman behind Jurel and, when needed, Ferreira, Pretorius barely got a game across the season. At the price, releasing him costs RR almost nothing and frees a domestic slot for a squad that’s clearly settled on Jurel as the long-term wicketkeeper-batter.

Yash Raj Punja, Vignesh Puthur, Sushant Mishra & Aman Rao: ₹30 Lakh – ₹90 Lakh

Four names bought largely to fill out a 25-man squad rather than to start matches, and with a settled XI carrying them deep into the playoffs, none forced their way into regular contention. Standard end-of-season squad churn, small individual numbers, but it’s the kind of housekeeping every franchise does after a season this packed.

Rajasthan Royals (RR) retained players list

The core that took RR to within one match of the final picks itself. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, obviously, is going nowhere; the only question is how much higher the franchise lets his price climb before he’s eligible for a fresh long-term deal. Jofra Archer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravi Bishnoi, whose four-wicket haul against Gujarat Titans justified his ₹7.20 crore price tag almost immediately, are all comfortably in. Sandeep Sharma, Nandre Burger and Kwena Maphaka round out a pace attack that did its job often enough, while Brijesh Sharma’s late-season opportunities suggest he’s earned a longer look in 2027 rather than a one-off audition.

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi Jofra Archer Yashasvi Jaiswal Dhruv Jurel Ravindra Jadeja Riyan Parag Ravi Bishnoi Sandeep Sharma Nandre Burger Kwena Maphaka Shubham Dubey Yudhvir Singh Charak Brijesh Sharma

The Riyan Parag question

One name needs a section of its own, because the team’s success and his personal returns told two completely different stories. Parag took over the captaincy after seven years at the franchise and, by most measures, did it well; bold field settings, visible faith in his bowlers, and a dressing room that, by all accounts, stayed together through a long season. His own batting, though, never matched the responsibility.

He went through a stretch in the middle of the season, averaging close to 12 with the bat, was bowled for single figures in back-to-back matches against RCB and SRH, and ended his last league game against the Mumbai Indians out cheaply once again. Kumar Sangakkara himself acknowledged after one low score that Parag was “hitting the ball off the middle” without it translating into runs, generously, and only partly the full picture.

None of that puts his captaincy in any real doubt; leading your franchise to within one win of a maiden return to the final in your first season in charge isn’t how leadership changes get triggered. But 2027 needs to be the year the runs catch up with the leadership, because RR can’t keep absorbing a misfiring captain at No. 3 or 4 indefinitely, however well the team around him is functioning.

RR Probable Retained & Released Players

Player NameRolePrice (INR)Expected Status
Yashasvi JaiswalBatsman₹18.00 CroreRetained
Dhruv JurelWicketkeeper₹14.00 CroreRetained
Riyan Parag (C)Batsman (C)₹14.00 CroreRetained
Ravindra JadejaAll-rounder₹14.00 CroreRetained
Jofra ArcherBowler₹12.50 CroreRetained
Ravi BishnoiBowler₹7.20 CroreRetained
Sandeep SharmaBowler₹4.00 CroreRetained
Nandre BurgerBowler₹3.50 CroreRetained
Kwena MaphakaBowler₹1.50 CroreRetained
Vaibhav SooryavanshiBatsman₹1.10 CroreRetained
Shubham DubeyAll-rounder₹80 LakhRetained
Yudhvir Singh CharakAll-rounder₹35 LakhRetained
Brijesh SharmaBowler₹30 LakhRetained
Shimron HetmyerBatsman₹11.00 CroreReleased
Tushar DeshpandeBowler₹6.50 CroreReleased
Sam CurranAll-rounder₹2.40 CroreReleased
Sushant MishraAll-rounder₹90 LakhReleased
Lhuan-dre PretoriusWicketkeeper₹30 LakhReleased
Yash Raj PunjaBowler₹30 LakhReleased
Vignesh PuthurBowler₹30 LakhReleased
Aman RaoBatsman₹30 LakhReleased

Purse value and auction strategy for IPL 2027

Strip out the players above, and RR is freed up somewhere in the region of ₹22-23 crore, nowhere near the kind of war chest a side rebuilding from the bottom gets to play with but meaningful for a squad that mostly just needs sharpening rather than rebuilding. It also matters more than the raw number suggests, because RR went into the IPL 2026 auction with barely anything left in reserve and had to scrap for value on the second tier of buys. This time, they get to be choosier.

The priorities are fairly clear. A genuine death-overs finisher to replace Hetmyer’s role, ideally one who doesn’t need a full season to find form. A reliable Indian seam-bowling option at the death to cover the Deshpande gap, since Bishnoi and Maphaka can only do so much of the heavy lifting through the middle overs. Some clarity, one way or another, on whether Curran’s groin issue genuinely rules him out long-term or whether there’s still value in keeping the door open via the auction rather than a straight release. And, less urgently but worth watching, a long-term decision on what an Indian wicketkeeper-batter pipeline behind Jurel looks like now that Pretorius is likely gone.

None of this changes the bigger picture. Sangakkara’s rebuild has already delivered Rajasthan Royals’ best season in four years, a generational batting talent who isn’t going anywhere, and a captain who, runs notwithstanding, has the dressing room with him. Get the auction right, and this group has every right to expect another tilt at a second title in 2027.

How did Rajasthan Royals perform in IPL 2026? Rajasthan Royals finished fourth in the league stage with 8 wins from 14 matches, then beat Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator before losing to Gujarat Titans in Qualifier 2, finishing third overall, their best campaign since reaching the final in 2022 and a dramatic turnaround from ninth place in 2025.

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