Rajasthan Royals caused a stir a day before the start of the 15th edition of the Indian Premier League, appearing to have sacked their social media team before later revealing that it was a prank.

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On Friday, Rajasthan Royals’ social media accounts posted a picture of Sanju Samson sitting on the team bus. The picture was edited to show Samson wearing a pagdi (headgear), glasses, lipstick and earrings, and had the caption “kya khoob lagte ho”, a famous Hindi song that roughly translates to “How beautiful you look”.

Samson appeared not to take kindly to the antics and replied to the post by saying, “Its ok for friends to do all this but teams should be professional..@rajasthanroyals.” Following the complaint, the original post was deleted by Rajasthan Royals.

The franchise issued a statement, where they have said that the “overall digital strategy” will be revisited ahead of the 2022 season.

“In light of today’s events, we will be making changes to our approach and team on social media. Everything is well within the squad ahead of the first game as the boys prepare for SRH. The management will revisit our overall digital strategy and appoint a new team in due course.

“We realise that it is the IPL season and fans want the account to post updates regularly. We will find temporary solutions in the interim.”

But a five-minute video later posted by the Rajasthan Royals Twitter account caused confusion. The video, captioned “One last time. PS: Love you, @IamSanjuSamson” followed by a heart emoji, was filmed from the perspective of the Rajasthan Royals social media admin. showed them attempting to log in to the Rajasthan Royals Twitter account only to get a ‘Wrong Password’ message, before a series of interactions with several of those contracted to the Rajasthan Royals team, including Neesham, R Ashwin, Kumar Sangakkara and Lasith Malinga. It ends with a clip showing Rajasthan Royals CEO Jake Lush McCrum firing the admin before being told to leave the bubble.

Another video, posted by the franchise later, confirmed that the entire incident was a prank. The video is an ‘audition’, in which several of Royals’ players are asked to try out to be in charge of managing the team’s social media accounts before the original admin is welcomed back.

Rajasthan Royals’ social media activity had made the news during the 2020 season as well, creating a stir after they uploaded a post calling Jos Buttler the “World’s Best Boss” and that they were “thankful for a boss like Jos”, leading to speculation over the possible resignation or sacking of then-skipper Steve Smith.

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IndiaRajasthan Royals Sanju SamsonGlobal T20 LeaguesIndian Premier LeagueSeries Editorial