Gautam Gambhir bats for Jos Buttler's appointment as Rajasthan Royals captain in IPL 2021

Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir has backed English wicket-keeper batsman Jos Buttler to be Steve Smith's successor after the Australian batting mainstay was released by the former champions Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday. 

Smith who had captained the inaugural edition's champions last season could not do anything exceptional as RR bagged the wooden spoon. He had a decent outing with the bat as well by managing to score 311 runs in all the 14 matches that he got to feature in.

'He is one player': Gautam Gambhir

Meanwhile, the Royals have appointed Sanju Samson as Smith's successor and he will be leading the franchise in the 2021 season. However, the 2011 World Cup winner reckons that it is a bit too early to hand over the captaincy reigns to the Kerala wicket-keeper batsman.

“According to me, it’s a bit early to give the captaincy to Sanju Samson. I would have appointed Jos Buttler as Rajasthan Royals captain. He is one player who will play in all 14 matches. Samson has recently played for India. He would be under pressure to cement his place in the side,” said Gambhir while speaking on Star Sports. 

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Rajasthan in Dream11 IPL 2020

The inaugural edition's champions seemed to have got off to a perfect start after registering two successive wins against northern rivals Punjab and Chennai. However, they ran out of fire & brimstone after that and went on to lose a few crucial encounters. 

Towards the end of their campaign, ace all-rounder Ben Stokes played a couple of crucial knocks as the former champions managed to keep their tournament hopes alive. Nonetheless, a huge 59-run loss against the two-time winners Kolkata in their last league match knocked them out of this year's competition.

The 2008 winners finished the mega event as the wooden-spooners with just 12 points from 14 matches and a much inferior net run-rate than the other teams did not help their cause either. 

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