By IANS,
Chennai : With their semi-final berth confirmed, the Rajasthan Royals will include “fresh faces” and also rest a few players when they take on the Chennai Super Kings here Saturday in the Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 tournament, said skipper and coach Shane Warne.
On the eve of the match Friday, Warne categorically stated that he intended to include players who have not had a game or have not played enough.
“There are a few players in our team who haven’t had many opportunities or not at all. We plan to rest a couple of players too and also try out a few experiments, now that we have qualified for the semi-finals,” Warne said.
To justify fielding a “new-look” team, the Aussie legend pointed out that the Royals have to play five games over the next nine days and hence there was need to provide sufficient rest to key players.
“After tomorrow’s game, we travel to Jaipur to meet Mumbai Indians, then to Mohali where we take on the Kings XI, and on to Mumbai for the semi-finals. If we get to the final, then it will be five games in nine days.”
“We now have opportunity to try out different players and assign them different roles, but of course, we would like to maintain our momentum which is very important,” he said.
In fact, Warne was already looking ahead to possible semi-final opponents and also the final. “We have a few tricks up our sleeves which we do not want to exhibit tomorrow as we might end up playing the Super Kings in the semi-finals or the final,” he said.
Although he did not specify the playing eleven for tomorrow’s game, he named young players like Ravindra Jadeja, Dinesh Salunkhe and Swapnil Asnodkar among others as the ones likely to play.
Warne spoke at length about Jadeja and Salunkhe who he rated as one of the most promising leg-spinners in India besides Amit Mishra (Daredevils) and Piyush Chawla (Kings XI Punjab).
“Both Jadeja and Salunkhe I feel have the ability to play in the one-day internationals and also Tests for India. The two are among several under-19 players who can go on to represent India,” he opined.