The 2026 season was Rajasthan Royals' seventeenth appearance in the Indian Premier League (IPL). They were one of the ten cricket teams that competed in the 2026 IPL. The team was captained by Riyan Parag and coached by Kumar Sangakkara.
Rajasthan Royals finished in fourth place in the league stage, and advanced to Eliminator in the playoffs. The team won Eliminator against Sunrisers Hyderabad but lost Qualifier 2 to Gujarat Titans. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi scored the most runs (776), which were the most by any batter in the tournament, while Jofra Archer took the most wickets (25) for Rajasthan in the 2026 season.
Pre-season
The 2026 Indian Premier League was the 19th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket league held in India, organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Rajasthan Royals had previously won the title once in the 2008 inaugural IPL. The team finished in ninth place in the previous season. The tournament featured ten teams competing in 74 matches from 28 March to 31 May 2026. Rajasthan played most of their home matches at Sawai Mansingh Stadium with two matches played at ACA Cricket Stadium.
Player retention Franchises were allowed to retain any number of players from their squad, including traded players while excluding players signed as temporary replacements. Franchises were required to submit their retention lists before 15 November 2025. Rajasthan retained sixteen players, but did not retain their prior captain Sanju Samson whom they traded to Chennai Super Kings in return for Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran. Rajsthan also traded Nitish Rana to Delhi Capitals in return for Donovan Ferreira.
+ Retained players Domestic Overseas Tushar Deshpande Shubham Dubey Yashasvi Jaiswal Ravindra Jadeja Dhruv Jurel Riyan Parag Lhuan-dre Pretorius Sandeep Sharma Yudhvir Singh Vaibhav Sooryavanshi Jofra Archer Nandre Burger Sam Curran Donovan Ferreira Shimron Hetmyer Kwena Maphaka + Released players Batters Wicket-keepers All-rounders Bowlers Nitish Rana Sanju Samson Kunal Singh Rathore Wanindu Hasaranga Fazalhaq Farooqi Kumar Kartikeya Akash Madhwal Ashok Sharma Maheesh Theekshana
Auction The season's auction took place on 16 December 2025 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The auction purse for each franchise was set at , with franchises being deducted an amount from the purse for every retained player. Rajasthan had a purse remaining of . Rajasthan bought nine players in the auction, including three capped players and one overseas player.
+ Auctioned players Domestic Overseas Capped Uncapped Capped Uncapped Ravi Bishnoi Kuldeep Sen Sushant Mishra Yash Raj Punja Vignesh Puthur Aman Rao Ravi Singh Brijesh Sharma Adam Milne
Squad Players with international caps as of the start of 2026 IPL are listed in bold. Ages are as of . Withdrawn players are indicated by a dagger symbol () and placed at the bottom of the table.
+ Rajasthan Royals squad for the 2026 Indian Premier League Name Nationality Birth date Batting style Bowling style Salary Notes 2 Donovan Ferreira Right-handed Right-arm off break Overseas 4 Vignesh Puthur Left-handed Left-arm unorthodox 5 Riyan Parag Right-handed Right-arm leg break Captain 6 Lhuan-dre Pretorius Left-handed Overseas 7 Dasun Shanaka Right-handed Right-arm medium Overseas; replacement 8 Ravindra Jadeja Left-handed Left-arm orthodox 11 Kwena Maphaka Left-handed Left-arm medium-fast Overseas 12 Vaibhav Sooryavanshi Left-handed Left-arm orthodox 14 Yash Raj Punja Right-handed Right-arm medium 16 Brijesh Sharma Right-handed Right-arm medium 17 Nandre Burger Left-handed Left-arm fast-medium Overseas 18 Kuldeep Sen Right-handed Right-arm medium-fast 20 Sandeep Sharma Right-handed Right-arm medium-fast 21 Dhruv Jurel Right-handed Right-arm medium-fast 22 Jofra Archer Right-handed Right-arm fast Overseas 23 Adam Milne Right-handed Right-arm fast Overseas 24 Tushar Deshpande Left-handed Right-arm medium-fast 27 Shubham Dubey Left-handed Right-arm off break 34 Yudhvir Singh Right-handed Right-arm medium-fast 51 Sushant Mishra Left-handed Left-arm medium fast 56 Ravi Bishnoi Right-handed Right-arm leg break 64 Yashasvi Jaiswal Left-handed Right-arm leg break Stand-in captain 189 Shimron Hetmyer Left-handed Right-arm leg break Overseas Emanjot Chahal Right-handed Left-arm orthodox Replacement Aman Rao Right-handed 58 Sam Curran Left-handed Left-arm fast-medium Overseas; withdrawn 88 Ravi Singh Left-handed Left-arm leg break Withdrawn
Support staff In September 2025, it was announced that Kumar Sangakkara would return as Rajasthan's head coach replacing Rahul Dravid, while Shane Bond would replace Sairaj Bahutule as bowling coach and Trevor Penney would join as an assistant coach.
Position Name Head coach Kumar Sangakkara Assistant coach Trevor Penney Batting coach Vikram Rathour Bowling coach Shane Bond Source: News18
League stage Rajasthan Royals began their season with four consecutive wins against Chennai, Gujarat Titans, Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bengaluru. They lost their next two matches to Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders, won against Lucknow Super Giants, lost to Hyderabad and won against Punjab Kings. The lost their next three matches to Delhi, Gujarat and Delhi but won their last two matches against Lucknow and Mumbai to finish the league stage in fourth place with eight wins from 14 matches, and advanced to Eliminator in the playoffs.
Points table
League progression
Fixtures
Playoffs Bracket
Eliminator
Qualifier 2
Statistics At the IPL end of season awards, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was awarded as the Most Valuable Player and the Emerging Player of the season. He was also awarded for most runs, most sixes and the highest batting strike rate in the season.
+ Most runs Runs Player 776 Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 515 Dhruv Jurel 427 Yashasvi Jaiswal 317 Donovan Ferreira 309 Riyan Parag + Most wickets Wickets Player 25 Jofra Archer 14 Brijesh Sharma Nandre Burger 11 Ravi Bishnoi 10 Ravindra Jadeja
References
External links
Rajasthan Royals at IPLT20.com