Rahul Dravid exits after poor debut season
Former Indian captain and coach Rahul Dravid parted ways with Rajasthan Royals on Saturday, August 30, after just one season in charge of the IPL franchise.
Dravid, who took over as Royals’ head coach following the end of his tenure with the Indian men’s team last year, endured a tough debut campaign. Under his leadership, Rajasthan finished ninth in the IPL 2025 points table, winning only four of their 14 matches.
Reacting to Dravid’s sudden exit, former South African wicketkeeper-batter and captain AB de Villiers made a strong claim on Sunday. According to him, Dravid was effectively “kicked out” by the franchise after declining a different role offered by the management.
“It sort of sounds to me like it was an owner or management kind of call. They gave him an option to have a broader role in the team. He sort of turned that down. Maybe he was upset because he really wanted to be still involved. He wanted to be in the dugout. Maybe it was his call. I don’t know. We’ll. I’m pretty sure we’ll find out once we get him talking about it in the future. Maybe. But Rahul, obviously, is leaving big footsteps behind, big shoes to fill,” De Villiers said on his social media show 360 LIVE.
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Drawing parallels with football, de Villiers compared Dravid’s situation to the pressure managers face in the English Premier League. “Sometimes you see it in the Premier League as well, the football league, where the managers and the coaches are always under huge pressure to perform and to bring trophies home. And once they don’t, they start hearing from the owners and whoever makes the decisions for the various leagues, sorry, franchises, so we don’t know the facts really. It sounds to me like the fact that he turned down that other role, sort of like he was kicked out, which is never ideal. But maybe Rajasthan have different ideas for the upcoming season. Maybe they want to shake things up a bit and move forward with that.”
The former Royal Challengers Bengaluru star also criticised Rajasthan Royals’ approach at the IPL 2025 auction, where he felt the franchise let go of key players. “I don’t think they had the greatest auction last time, as they let go of some incredible players, the likes of Jos Butler, to name but a few, which I thought was a mistake. They sometimes are a good thing, but not overly aggressive for you. You can let one or two go, but they. They let a huge bulk of their team go at once, I think, a gradual sort of decline.”
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Last Updated on September 1, 2025
