New Delhi: Sanju Samson, the captain of Rajasthan Royals (RR), will not participate in the upcoming IPL 2025 match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) due to a side strain. The team has confirmed that he will remain in Jaipur for recovery with select medical staff from RR.

Samson sustained the injury while competing against Delhi Capitals (DC) at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, where he had to retire hurt after scoring 31 runs off 19 balls. Unfortunately, RR lost that match in a nail-biting Super Over.

In a statement released on Monday, the franchise mentioned, "The team management is closely monitoring his recovery and will evaluate his return on a game-by-game basis." Consequently, Riyan Parag, who has already captained RR in four matches during Samson's absence, will lead the team against RCB, which is captained by Rajat Patidar, at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday.

With Samson unavailable, left-handed batter Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who made history as the youngest player to participate in the tournament at just 14 years old during a close match against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), will continue to open the batting alongside Jaiswal.

Currently, Samson ranks as RR's second-highest run-scorer in IPL 2025, accumulating 224 runs in seven innings with an average of 37.33. He, along with Parag and RR's leading scorer this season, Yashasvi Jaiswal (307 runs in eight innings), are the only players from the team to surpass the 200-run mark this season.

As of now, RR, the champions of the inaugural IPL in 2008, sit in eighth place on the IPL 2025 points table with four points, narrowly ahead of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) based on net run rate (NRR).