Rajasthan Royals' newly appointed captain Riyan Parag has spoken about the absence of long-time leader Sanju Samson, whose departure marks the end of an era for the franchise. In the IPL 2026, Riyan Parag will captain Rajasthan Royals after Sanju Samson, who captained Rajasthan Royals for the past five seasons, was traded to Chennai Super Kings ahead of last year’s auction. In exchange, Rajasthan secured two high-profile all-rounders, Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran. Speaking ahead of the new season, Parag compared the challenge of filling Samson’s shoes to replacing icons like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in the Indian setup. Under Samson's leadership, Rajasthan reached the IPL final in 2022 and returned to the playoffs in 2024. 

"If you talk about Sanju bhai, we never think about replacing the kind of player he is. We can perhaps look for someone with a similar skillset or have someone bat in his position. It's like there is no replacement for Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma, and in the same way, there is no replacement for Sanju Bhaiya because he is such a good player," Parag said at the pre-season press conference.

Reflecting on his journey to the captaincy, Parag said it has been a journey of ups and downs.

"It has been a journey of lots of ups and downs, maybe more downs than ups. I think I have seen it all as a teenager. Whatever a teenager can go through with, I think I have gone through that. But I am really proud of myself that I got out of it. Really thankful to Rajasthan that they backed me. Gave me so many opportunities (and) understood the cricketer that I was," he said.

RR IPL 2026 squad: Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Donovan Ferreira, Sandeep Sharma, Shubham Dubey, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Lhuan-Dre Pretorius, Shimron Hetmyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Riyan Parag, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Jofra Archer, Tushar Deshpande, Kwena Maphaka, Nandre Burger, Ravi Bishnoi, Sushant Mishra, Yash Raj Punja, Vignesh Puthur, Ravi Singh, Aman Rao, Brijesh Sharma, Adam Milne, Kuldeep Sen