The proposal hasn’t been rubber-stamped by the BCCI yet, and it remains to be seen whether it will affect Rayudu’s participation in the CPL.
Rayudu will link up with former Tamil Nadu allrounder Malolan Rangarajan, who has replaced Simon Helmot as Patriots’ head coach. Malolan has also been part of Royal Challengers Bangalore men and women’s support staff in the IPL. Minakshi Negi, who has worked with Uttarakhand and Bengal in Indian domestic cricket, has been hired by Patriots as their physiotherapist for this CPL. In the past, Robin Singh and Abhishek Nayar had coached CPL franchises.
Patriots owner Mahesh Ramani said in a statement, “I am sure Ambati’s seasoned expertise of having won multiple championships with various teams in an illustrious career in India will undoubtedly enrich the experience of our young players as we chase our second CPL title in 2023.”
As things stand, Indian players can feature in overseas leagues only if they are retired from international cricket and BCCI-run tournaments such as the IPL. Unmukt Chand, Robin Uthappa, Yusuf Pathan and S Sreesanth are among the Indians who have participated in franchise tournaments recently after having retired from international cricket.
TA Adhishwar, director of cricket at Patriots, believes that they can challenge TKR for the title, though they finished second from the bottom in the six-team league last season.
“Winning is a habit and losing as a habit becomes far quicker than winning. We’ve got two titles in two years, although in different formats, but we’d ideally like to do a three-peat this year and get another trophy in the house,” Adhishwar told ESPNcricinfo in the lead-up to the CPL. “To make it explicitly clear, this year is very, very important on a lot of grounds: for one, on how the previous season went for us. I’m confident in myself and Malolan that we can take a strong step in the right direction and be the strongest contenders for the trophy.”