Shane Watson was promoted as the Rajasthan Royals captain at the start of Season 7 of the Indian Premier League, and the role carried huge responsibilities after the retirement of Rahul Dravid. The Australian allrounder has captained Rajasthan in five matches so far this season and ended the UAE leg of IPL 7 with a tense Super-Over win over Kolkata Knight Riders. Going into the final phase of the league back home, Rajasthan have won three of their five matches and Watson is clearly enjoying the role of a leader with “a lot of fun”. “It has been a lot of fun. There have been a few more ups and downs than I thought I would experience,” Watson told iplt20.com in an interview. “It’s filled with more lows as it happens when you lose a few games and things don’t go to plan. But when we have won, it has been more satisfying than my personal Rajasthan have had some big names as captain, namely Shane Warne and Rahul Dravid, which makes Watson’s role more challenging to take over from those cricket greats, and the Aussie hopes to do justice to his job. “I know I have big shoes to fill, knowing what Shane Warne brought to the Rajasthan Royals from the very day that he arrived. He was an amazing captain, one of the very best I have played under. Then there’s Rahul Dravid, who took over from Warne and did an incredible job himself. “My style will be a bit different from Warne and Dravid, but hopefully it is not different in a worse way. I am trying to be the best captain that I can be and have much to live up to,” the allrounder said. Watson also believed that an allrounder has an advantage as captain, since he can think from both batsmen and bowlers’ point of view. “I think it’s a big advantage. A majority of captains are just batsmen, which is good from the batting point of view. But it can be quite different from the bowling point of view in terms of how they think, and I am very lucky in that regards because I understand both aspects inside out.”
