Punjab Kings (PBKS) have made a lot of changes to their personnel from the last season, unlike the Royal Challengers Challengers. The changes from the captain itself and now the PBKS will be skippered by the veteran Indian opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan. They will be the 2nd side after the Sunrisers Hyderabad who has changed their captain. One of the main reasons for these changes can be attributed to the lacklustre performance of PBKS in the 22′ edition where they finished 6th in the points.
What happened?
PBKS let go of their 2022 IPL edition skipper Mayank Agarwal ahead of the mini-auctions. There are multiple factors that might have contributed to this decision. One is the failure of the team to reach the playoffs and the other can be the price tag of Mayank. The opener has lost his place in the Indian team and had a poor outing as a batsman scoring just 196 runs in the 13 games. PBKS also released the all-rounder Odean Smtih who was one of the costly players that they brought ahead of the 2022 edition.
Retained Players
Shikhar Dhawan (Captain), Shahrukh Khan, Jonny Bairstow, Prabhsimran Singh, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Jitesh Sharma, Raj Bawa, Rishi Dhawan, Liam Livingstone, Atharva Taide, Arshdeep Singh, Baltej Singh, Nathan Ellis, Kagiso Rabada, Rahul Chahar, Harpreet Brar
Released Players
Mayank Agarwal, Odean Smith, Vaibhav Arora, Benny Howell, Ishan Porel, Ansh Patel, Prerak Mankad, Sandeep Sharma, Writtick Chatterjee
Who will they target in the upcoming Auction?
Purse remaining going into the auctions INR 32.2 crore
Players got through trade from other teams: 0
Overseas slots remaining to be filled: 3
As expected, PBKS will be one of the busier teams in the upcoming auctions and have over 30 crores to spend to fill 9 more slots in the team including 3 overseas players. By the looks of it, PBKS might require a prominent overseas top-order batsman and a fast-bowling all-rounder to replace Odean Smith. They also need a quality spinner to assist the leg-spinner Rahul Chahar.
Read Now: Complete List of Released & Retained Players
