Rajasthan Royals typically stick to their game plan and starting lineups. With Sanju Samson at the helm, the team has shown a lot of consistency. Even though they haven't clinched the title in a while, they've made it to the playoffs. As they gear up for the 2025 season, Samson has announced that he’ll be sharing wicketkeeping duties with Dhruv Jurel.

In a chat with AB de Villiers, Samson mentioned that he’s had talks with the management, head coach Rahul Dravid, and Jurel about this arrangement. The Royals' captain pointed out that everyone recognizes Jurel as a potential Test wicketkeeper for India, so it’s important for him to get some game time behind the stumps in the IPL too.

"I haven't mentioned this publicly before. As I said earlier, we care about our players. I think we really see Dhruv Jurel's potential; he’s a Test wicketkeeper now, and he needs to get those gloves on in the IPL at some point," Sanju Samson shared during his conversation with AB de Villiers on the latter's YouTube channel.

We talked about it; we’re going to share gloves. We’ll both be using them. I haven’t done much captaincy in the field, but I told him straight up, ‘Dhruv, I get where you’re coming from, and I really respect you as a leader, so you should take the reins in some matches.’ We’ll figure out how to make that work. The team’s the priority; nothing should get in the way of that, he mentioned.

This will be the first time in several years that Samson steps away from wicketkeeping to lead the team from a different position on the field.

Samson's impressive performance in 2024.

Before the IPL 2025 mega auction, Rajasthan Royals decided to keep both Samson and Jurel, with Jurel being retained for a hefty INR 14 crore.

Samson really stepped up recently, showcasing his talent in T20s for India by hitting three centuries in his last five T20I matches for the senior team.

His first T20I century was against Bangladesh in October 2024, and he followed that up with two more against South Africa—one in Durban and another in Johannesburg.

As for Dhruv Jurel, he’s currently part of India’s Test squad for the ongoing five-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia.

Jurel made a fantastic debut for India earlier this year, delivering a game-changing performance against England in Ranchi. So far, in the four Tests he’s played, the 23-year-old has racked up 202 runs.

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