IPL 2021: Rajasthan Royals sign Gerald Coetzee to replace Liam Livingstone

Rajasthan Royals have signed the services of South African fast bowler, Gerald Coetzee as a replacement for English all-rounder Liam Livingstone. Livingstone had decided to fly back to England citing bubble fatigue. Coetzee has scalped nine wickets in the eight T20 matches at an average of 23.33 and he has represented South Africa in two Under-19 World Cups.

Meanwhile, the franchise had already lost out on the services of their talisman all-rounder Ben Stokes, who suffered a finger injury while taking Chris Gayle’s catch in the first match of the season for the franchise. Stokes then returned back to England for his surgery as he was ruled out of the rest of the season.

Furthermore, Rajasthan Royals gun fast bowler Jofra Archer was also ruled out for the rest of the tournament due to finger injury and he has also gone under the knife.

Moreover, Andrew Tye also decided to fly back to Australia as he was afraid to be locked out of Australia due to Covid-19 scare. Thus, Rajasthan Royals were left with only four overseas players – Jos Buttler, David Miller, Chris Morris and Mustafizur Rahman and all of them are consistently playing in the final XI as RR don’t have any back-up foreign players.

Rajasthan Royals have also roped in South Africa’s Rassie van der Dussen as a replacement for Ben Stokes. Dussen has been in good form and he will look to put paid to RR’s middle-order woes if he is given the chance in the playing XI.

Meanwhile, Rajasthan Royals have had a poor start to their campaign as they have lost four matches out of the six they have played and are currently at the seventh position in the points table. The Sanju Samson-led team will next face Sunrisers Hyderabad on May 2nd and they will get back to winning ways after losing to Mumbai Indians in their previous game.