Former South Africa star batter AB de Villiers believes Rahul Dravid’s sudden exit from Rajasthan Royals may not have been as simple as it looked. Dravid left the team just a year after signing a long-term deal. The Royals said he turned down a bigger role, but de Villiers believes the management might have pushed him out.
“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,” de Villiers said on his show 360 LIVE.
“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… sort of like he was kicked out, which is never ideal,” de Villiers added.
The Royals, meanwhile, praised Dravid in their statement, calling him central to their journey and a leader who built strong values. The 2008 IPL champions had hoped Dravid would help end their long trophy wait after guiding India to a T20 World Cup win in 2024. But Rajasthan finished ninth last season with only four wins in 14 games.
De Villiers also felt the Royals hurt themselves by releasing too many experienced players at once. “They let a huge bulk of their team go at once, I think, a gradual sort of decline,” he concluded.
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