Is RR’s Obsession With Future Sabotaging Their Present? Rahul Dravid Answers

IPL 2025: Rajasthan Royals are known to be a launchpad for young talents. But is it sabotaging their title dreams?

IPL 2025: Rahul Dravid believes Rajasthan Royals have an eye on the future, but not at the cost of the present.

s SAIKAT DAS

With the inclusion of Vaibhav Suryavanshi — who shattered records en route to a century against Gujarat Titans — Rajasthan Royals’ reputation as Indian cricket’s finest talent incubator has scaled yet another peak. Yet, it has done very little to mask their persistent lack of materialistic success.

From sculpting an unpolished Sanju Samson in 2013, to unearthing Yashasvi Jaiswal and Riyan Parag, Rajasthan have established themselves as arguably the best platform for youngsters to hone their skills in the grand stage of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Despite a change in the coaching hierarchy, with Rahul Dravid assuming the role from Kumar Sangakkara, the tradition continued in 2025 as the 2008 champions retained the likes of Parag and Dhruv Jurel – both having very limited international experience – ahead of stalwarts such as Jos Buttler and Yuzvendra Chahal. Notably, they have the youngest squad in the competition.

The decision sparked a familiar debate among fans: is Rajasthan’s obsession with the future sabotaging their present?

Responding to this query from The Quint on Star Sports Press Room, Dravid stated:

Even though we have an eye on the long term, I’m not saying that we’ve given up on the present. I still believe we had — and have — the team to win even this year. The results haven’t quite gone our way, but it’s not like we’re only focused on the future. Yes, we’ve retained some younger Indian players with the long term in mind, but we genuinely believed they were good enough to help us win this tournament as well. So I wouldn't use long-term thinking as an excuse for where we are on the table right now.

Rahul Dravid

We Lost by Fine Margins: Rahul Dravid

Rajasthan endured a few narrow defeats in IPL 2025, including a Super Over loss to Delhi Capitals and a two-run defeat against Lucknow Super Giants. Dravid believes his team would have been in the race to the playoffs, had it not been for emerging second-best in the game of fine margins.

We went into the season fully confident we could perform this year too — and for the most part, I think we have. Like I said, it’s just a few key moments where things didn’t go our way. If we’d won even two of those three close games, the table would be looking very different. We’d be sitting on 10 points and right in the mix.

Rahul Dravid

Further establishing the team’s plans for instantaneous success, he added:

That’s the nature of this tournament — it comes down to fine margins. Of course, we’ve taken decisions thinking long-term, especially with players who’ve been part of the franchise for a while and who we want to back going forward. But make no mistake, we also believed we could go all the way this year.

Rahul Dravid

Though not yet mathematically, the Royals are practically all but eliminated from the playoffs race, having accumulated 6 points from ten matches. Yet with Jaiswal and Suryavanshi blazing up top, they’ll look to ignite fireworks before the final curtain.