Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju Samson has revealed that Yashasvi Jaiswal loves to bat in the nets so much that he literally has to be pulled out of it. Jaiswal, one of India’s most exciting young batters, holds the record for scoring the fastest fifty in the Indian Premier League – off 13 balls – has started tormenting bowlers already (ask England) but no one has quite felt the wrath of his batting onslaught than the RR support staff.

Samson, who will return to captain RR in the IPL 2024, has disclosed that Jaiswal’s batting is so injurious to the net bowlers that it actually ended up sending them to hospital. “That has to be Jaiswal,” Samson said when asked to name the player who spends the longest time in the nets. “Jaiswal has to be pulled out of nets for the last 3-4 years.

“We have four Sardar ji’s in our practice camp. They are called Cut, Pull, Flick, and Drive. The guy called ‘Cut’ only throws balls cut during practice, the guy called Pull only bowls pull to practice. So same for the other guys. All four of them dislocated their shoulders because of Jaiswal last season. And RR has to go ensure the treatment. They were in the hospital and made a comeback. I think instead of players, the staff gets injured because of Jaiswal.”

RR’s hopes of a trophy finish ride on the shoulder of young Jaiswal. The 22-year-old, who made his India debut last August, has created ripples in international cricket in such a short time and is coming into the IPL on the high of an uber-successful Test series against England. Jaiswal scored over 700 runs in the series, becoming only the second-ever Indian batter after the legendary Sunil Gavaskar to scale such a milestone as magnanimous as this. With two double centuries and three fifties, Jaiswal was fittingly named the Player of the Series.

But that doesn’t mean he is any less of a threat in T20Is. He’s already scored over 500 runs for India from 17 matches, including four half-centuries and a hundred. Last year, at IPL 2023, Jaiswal had finished fifth, behind Shubman Gill, Faf du Plessis, Devon Conway and Virat Kohli in the list of leading scorers with 625 runs from 14 games but boasted the best strike-rate among the top five.

RR gives Indian cricket international players: Samson

Jaiswal isn’t the only youngster RR would have their hopes high from. Young Dhruv Jurel is another name that made heads during the England Tests and holds the key to the Royals’ chances. One of RR’s standout features is the care the franchise takes of their young talent; In fact, for Samson, it’s even higher on his priority list than winning the IPL trophy, and this year promises to be no different.

“Being a part of this franchise which values more than winning the championship, if I can say, that we definitely put in a lot of effort for the youngsters coming in by taking care of their career and the country by giving one or two international players almost every year. That is something phenomenal which Rajasthan Royals has been doing from the year I’ve been playing. In 2013-14, I broke into the Indian side and from then, from there, every season or the other has been playing,” added Samson.