Rajasthan Royals owner Manoj Badale has made a big revelation on the real reason for Sanju Samson’s exit from the franchise. He revealed that this decision had been loaded and circled in the RR camp since the end of IPL 2025.
Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings have announced their final team retentions ahead of the upcoming mini-auction. Rajasthan Royals have released their captain Sanju Samson as a trade.
Ravindra Jadeja was traded from Chennai Super Kings to Rajasthan Royals, as the veteran all-rounder joined his former franchise after a long time since 2009. The move between the two franchises was finalized on the same day when they released their official franchise list.
Sanju Samson’s ouster was planned in Kolkata last season
This trade has been making headlines since Rajasthan Royals was ranked number one. 9th position in IPL points table. RR owner Manoj Badale has now explained why he had to release the franchise captain.
“The first time this year or last year when Sanju talked about moving on was probably in Kolkata at the end of the season. We had a meeting after the game. He’s a very honest guy, and he was emotionally drained personally. He cares a lot about RR, and I think our worst season in 18 years took a lot out of him,” Badale said in a video posted on the official handle of Rajasthan Royals.
Badale mentioned that it was the match against Kolkata Knight Riders at the end of the last season. He revealed that the wicketkeeper decided to look for a change due to mental and physical turmoil at RR.
“I think he felt that, after giving RR the best part of 14 years with breaks, he just wanted a new chapter to refresh the end of his journey with the IPL. In Sanju’s case, when he made the request, I think it felt different for us. A, because he is a very authentic person, and if he says something, he usually means it. He has been an exceptional servant to the franchise for 14 years. It’s just It’s not the batting that the fans watch or the sixes that the fans watch. It’s everything else that he puts in,” he added.
Sanju Samson has played for Rajasthan Royals twice, first for the Royals in 2013 when he made his debut, and then moved to Delhi Daredevils in 2016 and 2017. He returned to the Royals camp in 2018 and remained flawless. He took over the captaincy in 2021 and led them to two knockouts and one final in 2022.
He further explained that the franchise is not in a state of chaos.
Badale said, “There are reports in the media that there is chaos at Rajasthan Royals, people are leaving, Rahul is leaving, but the reality is that internally it does not feel like that. Internally, we are committed to a process and a timeline. We are probably a week behind what we expected, or maybe two weeks later, but everything feels very calm here.”
He added, “But when you put a player of Sanju Samson’s stature, everyone is interested. We have a whole group of people who are evaluating every trade option presented to us, and you know, we will meet regularly as a group, but my role was to lead the discussions, not to make decisions.”
Is Sanju Samson in the race for captaincy in CSK?
Batsman Sanju Samson, who came to Chennai Super Kings from Royals, will not be seen in the captaincy role. The CSK team had already revealed that the captaincy option for anyone other than Ruturaj Gaikwad is never considered.
Ruturaj Gaikwad is currently playing brilliantly for Maharashtra and is expected to be available for the entire season in 2026. He was ruled out mid-season during IPL 2025, and MS Dhoni took over the captaincy in his absence.
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