Rajasthan Royals: Decoding their IPL 2024 season in stats
What's the story
Rajasthan Royals' campaign in the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL) has come to an end.
They bowed out after losing to Sunrisers Hyderabad in Qualifier 2 on Friday at Chepauk.
Sanju Samson's men dominated the initial half of the season before suffering a series of defeats.
Notably, they finished third in the final team standings.
Here are the key takeaways from their campaign.
Campaign
A season of two halves for RR
RR won eight of their first nine games before losing four on the bounce.
Their final league match got washed out as RR finished third in the team standings with 17 points (NRR: +0.273).
While RR defeated the high-flying Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the Eliminator, they lost to SRH in Qualifier 2.
Openers
Lackluster show from openers
The likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Jos Buttler were highly inconsistent for RR.
Jaiswal, who managed to touch the 50-run mark only twice, finished with 435 runs at a strike rate of 155.91. The tally includes a hundred.
While Buttler scored two tons in the season, he didn't score a fifty in his other nine outings.
He finished with 359 runs (SR: 140.78).
Middle-order
The Samson-Parag show
Samson led RR from the front and enjoyed his most prolific season in terms of runs, 531 at 48.27.
He smoked five fifties and struck at 153.46.
Meanwhile, Riyan Parag finished as RR's highest run-getter, 573 at 52.09.
It was a breakthrough season for him as he mustered four fifties (50s: 4).
DYK
Do you know?
Parag's tally of 573 runs is the most for a player batting at four or lower in an IPL season.
He went past Rishabh Pant's tally of 547 runs in 2018.
Meanwhile, this was also the first occasion of two non-openers from a team scoring over 500 runs in an edition.
Finishers
How did the lower-order batters fare?
The consistent show from Parag and Samson meant RR's lower-order batters didn't get many opportunities.
However, Dhruv Jurel fared well in the limited opportunities, scoring 195 runs (SR: 138.29). He hammered two fifties.
Meanwhile, Shimron Hetmyer (113 at 22.60) and Rovman Powell (103 at 17.16) had under-par seasons.
Boult
Boult scripts these records
Trent Boult was simply sensational with the new ball as he took seven wickets in the first over this season.
No other bowler has even five wickets in this regard. Meanwhile, Boult now also owns the most first-over wickets in IPL history (30).
Overall, he finished the season with 16 scalps (ER: 8.30).
Pacers
Avesh starred in death overs
Pacer Avesh Khan finished as RR's leading wicket-taker with 19 scalps at an economy of 9.59.
8 of his wickets came in the final four overs (ER: 9.23).
Meanwhile, Sandeep Sharma was the only RR bowler with a fifer this year, 5/18 versus Mumbai Indians.
He overall finished with 13 wickets at a sensational economy of 8.18.
Spinners
Multiple records for Chahal
Veteran leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal showcased many colors this year as he claimed 18 wickets at an economy of 9.41.
Earlier in the season, he became the first bowler to 200 IPL wickets (now 205). He is also now RR's highest wicket-taker in IPL (66).
Though Ravichandran Ashwin managed just nine wickets, his economy of 8.49 was decent.