Rajasthan Royals who are currently dealing with a scarcity of players have written to the other IPL franchises seeking player loans. It must be noted that the Rajasthan Royals who recently defeated Kolkata Knight Riders has been badly affected. While some of their main players including Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer has been forced to return to their country after injuries, some of the players including Liam Livingstone and Andrew Tye has left the team bubble citing fatigue issues.
Hence they are currently left with only four foreign players and they are in urgent need of some players to fulfil their duties atleast for this season. Jos Buttler, Chris Morris, David Miller and Mustafizur Rahman are the only four foreigners available for selection at the moment. Royals are currently ranked 6th in the points table with two victories in five matches.
A sense of tension has crept in after the second wave of COVID-19 has taken India off guard and the players are also feeling the tension. Adam Zampa, Kane Richardson and Ravichandran Ashwin among others have also pulled out of the tournament. While Ashwin hopes to come back if the situation improves, both Zampa and Richardson has been ruled out of the remainder of the tournament.
The IPL playing condition states that the loan window will start at 9 am IST on the day after the completion of the 20th league game. It will end on 12 noon IST on the day following the conclusion of the 56th match, which is the final group game of the competition.
" It means the window got activated at 9 am on Monday (April 26) after the doubleheader on Sunday night.
"We have received a request from them a couple of days ago and we have not decided on it. The team management will take a call," a CEO of a southern-based franchise was quoted as saying by the Cricbuzz.
"We will consider if we can loan them a player or two from our surpluses," another CEO confirmed.
As per the IPL regulations, a player at the start of the loan period played either in the XI or a concussion replacement must have been part of the XI in less than two matches of the season to get loaned to another team. A player can be loaned only once in the season and it has to be for the remainder of the tournament. However, the rules don’t allow the player to take the field against his home franchise. The rules also suggest that "each franchisee may loan no more than three of its players to the same franchisee during the season."