Rajasthan Royals head into IPL 2026 without the player who defined them for over a decade. Sanju Samson, traded to Chennai Super Kings last November as part of a swap deal that brought Ravindra Jadeja to Jaipur, won’t be pulling on the pink jersey this season and former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis thinks that matters more than people might realise.
Speaking on JioHotstar’s ‘Game Plan – Know Your Team’, du Plessis drew a direct line between Samson and the franchise identity that RR have built over recent years.
“If I look at the IPL and the teams, the iconic teams we see around the league, all of them have one marquee Indian player in common, someone who has been the face of the franchise for a period of time Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli,” du Plessis said. “And Sanju Samson, for me, was that guy at the Rajasthan Royals. Yes, he’s of a newer generation, but he has become the face of that franchise. If I think of the Rajasthan Royals, I think Sanju Samson. So, the fact that they’ve lost that face, I think, is a massive thing for the fans, for the IPL, and for the tournament, because he’s played such a big role there.”
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The numbers back that up. Across 12 seasons in two spells with RR including leading them to the 2022 final and the 2024 playoffs Samson scored 4,027 runs in 49 matches. He is the 2008 champions’ all-time leading run-scorer and, for a large section of the fanbase, the reason they tuned in.
That association is now over. Samson moves to CSK, where he arrives at a particularly loaded moment MS Dhoni is widely expected to retire before or during this season, and Samson’s experience as a captain and wicketkeeper-batter makes him a natural fit for a franchise in transition. For Rajasthan, the rebuild starts now.
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