Former Indian cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin believes that Rajasthan Royals (RR) should have made Ravindra Jadeja as captain for IPL 2026 and Riyan Parag his deputy. His remarks comes just weeks after the one-time champions decided to appoint the Assam all-rounder as full-time captain for the new season following the departure of Sanju Samson. Jadeja was traded to RR along with Sam Curran for the Keralam keeper-batter, and many believed that the return of the veteran to RR will result in him being captain. However, that wasn’t the case.
‘Thought Jadeja will be made captain’
In a video on his YouTube channel, Ashwin revealed that while he thought Jadeja would be made new RR captain, he hopes that the team puts Yashasvi Jaiswal on the same level as Parag and consider him as a future captain. Parag captained RR on several occasions in IPL 2025 when Sanju Samson was out injured and hardly managed to create impact, as the team finished 9th on the points table with just 4 wins from 14 games. Meanwhile, Jaiswal was considered as a frontrunner to become the next captain after Samson’s trade. However, the team decided to stick to their guns and stuck with Parag as the captain. Jadeja, on the other hand, has limited captaincy experience in IPL, having led CSK only for nearly half a season in 2023 before the reins were handed back to MS Dhoni.
“Parag has captained Assam in domestic cricket. RR are a very systematic team; they would have interviewed him before making him the captain. I just hope they also put Jaiswal in the same pedigree and trust him to be the captain in the future. Somewhere in my head, I thought Ravindra Jadeja would be the captain. They could have made him the captain and chosen Riyan as the vice-captain,” Ashwin said.
Parag is one of the very few youngsters who has been handed over the reins of a team in the IPL. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Shubman Gill being the other ones. Ashwin reckoned that Parag’s success as RR captain largely hinges on how his bowlers perform.
“It will be a challenging year. If the bowlers deliver, it will make his job easier. It’s not like that Parag has to look towards Jaiswal and Jurel; he has Ravindra Jadeja to look to for some suggestions. Hopefully, Kumar Sangakkara and the rest of the backroom staff can make his job a lot easier,” Ashwin added.
