After the auction for 2020 edition of Indian Premier League, in this series we take a look at how the teams stack up and what their strengths, weaknesses are.
Breakdown of the KXIP squad with players bought at the auction highlighted in bold:
Kings XI Punjab
| Batsmen | Bowlers | Allrounders | Wicketkeeper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Gayle | Mohammed Shami | K Gowtham | KL Rahul |
| Mayank Agarwal | Mujeeb ur Rahman | Glenn Maxwell | Nicholas Pooran |
| Karun Nair | Arshdeep Singh | Deepak Hooda | Prabhsimran Singh |
| Sarfaraz Khan | Hardus Viljoen | James Neesham | |
| Mandeep Singh | M Ashwin | Chris Jordan | |
| J Suchith | Tajinder Dhillon | ||
| Harpreet Brar | |||
| Darshan Nalkande | |||
| Sheldon Cottrell | |||
| Ravi Bishnoi | |||
| Ishan Porel |
As written in our IPL auction takeaways, Kings XI Punjab had a solid auction. With Anil Kumble at the helm, KXIP went about their business shrewdly. Despite having Ra 42.70 crores, KXIP did not exhaust their funds early and waited to pick up players at optimum prices. In the end, they completed their squad of 25 players with Rs 16.50 crores pending in the purse.
And the franchise would be delighted with how Glenn Maxwell announced his return to the game a day after Punjab decided to make him their prime pick. In James Neesham (Rs 50 lakhs), Ishan Porel (Rs 10 lakhs), and Chris Jordan (Rs 3 crores), they got three of the top bargain deals on the day while going all out for the X-factor player they looked for in Maxwell.
Players bought by KXIP
| PLAYER | TYPE | PRICE PAID |
|---|---|---|
| Glenn Maxwell | All-Rounder | ₹10,75,00,000 |
| Sheldon Cottrell | Bowler | ₹8,50,00,000 |
| Chris Jordan | All-Rounder | ₹3,00,00,000 |
| Ravi Bishnoi | Bowler | ₹2,00,00,000 |
| Prabhsimran Singh | Wicket Keeper | ₹55,00,000 |
| Deepak Hooda | All-Rounder | ₹50,00,000 |
| James Neesham | All-Rounder | ₹50,00,000 |
| Tajinder Dhillon | All-Rounder | ₹20,00,000 |
| Ishan Porel | Bowler | ₹20,00,000 |
The first significant decision Punjab made was to not bid for Aaron Finch or Eoin Morgan and dropping the hint that KL Rahul will be the leader for the upcoming season. While captaincy might as well have the impact it did on Rohit Sharma at Mumbai Indians, this is a bit of a gamble from the franchise. It feels like the batsman is back in a good head-space and playing without feeling much pressure on his shoulders, but one has to wonder what captaining an IPL side will do to his batting.
And Maxwell, as always, is a gamble. It is a signing that could go either way but given how strong the side’s top order is, KXIP will hope Maxwell adds consistency to their middle order and not unpredictability.
“We have done well, because we had almost 50 per cent getting into the auction and by far we have gotten what we wanted,” Kumble told Star Sports after the auction. “This is a good platform for Glenn Maxwell with the T20 World Cup around the corner to come here and we know the quality he brings, not just as a batsmen but as a fielder and a bowling option and he can bat anywhere in the middle order too. So that’s the advantage and we needed a power hitter and we felt Maxwell was the right person to fill that gap.”
And after dropping out of the bidding for Chris Morris, KXIP arguably ended up with a more dependable T20 bowler in Jordan. We would be willing to bet that is a bullet dodged by the franchise and they have strengthened an area that was weak by adding pace-bowling options. Porel, as mentioned earlier, is a steal at his base price.
“We were looking for Chris Morris initially but once he got out of hand and we lost him, we felt that Chris Jordan would fill that spot for us. He can bowl in the middle overs and he can obviously bowl in the death overs, we were keen to get someone to bowl at the death as that was missing. He also adds value to the lower order and is a good fielder so we saw a complete package in Chris Jordan and we are happy that we got him at a really good price,” Kumble added.
