Follow UsWhen you pay a batter INR 14 Cr and retain him ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 auction, it must mean that you saw potential in him, you saw someone who knew what he was doing and who had the calibre to show character when it mattered the most.
However, with 42 matches done, none of those qualities have been displayed by Dhruv Jurel, who had a fantastic 2024 where he made his India Test debut and also made it to the T20 team.
In fact, he is one of the few, if not the only reason, why the Rajasthan Royals (RR) are practically (not theoretically, though) out of the playoffs race, even with six games pending.
Against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), RR needed 18 off 12. Jurel was batting on 47 off 32 balls, having hit a six and two fours in the previous over, and yet his team lost the game by 11 runs.
But this was not the first time that such an easy chase was bottled by the team from the pink city while Jurel, one of the designated finishers of the team, was batting.
It happened in their previous game against the Lucknow Super Giants in Jaipur and in the prior game against the Delhi Capitals in Delhi.
Against the Capitals, Jurel, well set on 25 off 16 balls, had to score two off the last ball to win for the team. He was only able to take one, and RR eventually lost the Super Over.
In that game, Hetmyer wanted to run a double on the fifth ball of the over and keep strike for the last ball, but Jurel had sent him back and eventually failed to get that one extra run.
Against LSG, instead of attacking on the very first ball, Jurel took a single and never got back the strike in the entire over as his team lost by two runs. As a finisher, the onus should have been on him, but he instead was waiting at the non-striker’s end to see his team lose.
However, in the latest game against RCB at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, no such condition of the last over was there before Jurel, as he had started the RR downfall way before that.
Needing 206 to win, RR had a fantabulous start as their openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Suryavanshi added 52 in just 25 balls. When Jurel came out to bat, the Jaipur-based side needed 96 off 65 balls with seven wickets in hand.
But the partnership between Nitish Rana and him was just 24 off 26 balls, and out of those, Jurel had played 19 balls to score just 16. The scoreboard pressure got rid of Rana, and it all came down to two of the best RR finishers - Jurel and Hetmyer.
After suffering two tragic losses, it was hoped that Jurel and Hetmyer would redeem themselves. But this became their third tragic loss.
After being 18 off his first 23 balls, Jurel hit two sixes and a four and went to 32 off 28 balls to keep the flames of the win burning. He then smashed Bhuvneshwar Kumar for two fours and a six and reached 47 off just 32 balls. It seemed like Jurel would finally redeem himself by winning this game and keeping RR alive in the race to the playoffs.
However, Jurel did what he had done in the previous two games, bottled up a chase, unable to get his bat even near the ball that Josh Hazlewood was delivering in the 19th.
Trying to connect hard, he gave an edge to the keeper and left his team stranded, trying to get 17 off 9.
It’s not to say that other RR batters like Hetmyer, Shubham Dubey didn’t flop, but the wicketkeeper-batter had time in his hand and had already faced 34 balls, too much to bottle up a chase of 18 off 12 balls.
But Jurel made no use of that time and once again proved that spending INR 14 Cr to acquire him and not getting Buttler in the retention window was one of the gravest errors by RR.