Eying elusive IPL title, Punjab Kings splurge Rs 77 cr on 5 players
Eyeing the elusive title in the coming Indian Premier League (IPL) season, the Punjab Kings (PBKS) management has spent a whopping Rs 26.75 crore — the second highest bid of today’s auction — to pick the new skipper, and another Rs 51crore to get four more seasoned players.
Punjab Kings, which has a massive Rs 110.5 crore budget, used the majority of the amount in picking three Indian and two foreign capped players, who have performed well in the past IPL seasons.
The Punjab franchisee first picked Shreyas Iyer for Rs 26.75 crore, which was the highest bid of the day until Lucknow Super Giants made a bid of Rs 27 crore for Rishabh Pant. Iyer could possibly be the new captain of the Punjab Kings squad in the upcoming season of the IPL. Besides Iyer, PBKS retained the region’s most favourite lad and one of the best performers for the Indian team, Arshdeep Singh, for Rs 18 crore. Having enough in their kitty, the franchisee had an intense fight to grab Yuzvendra Chahal for the same bid as Arshdeep. Chahal becomes the most expensive spinner of the IPL history by getting the Rs 18-crore deal.
The management also picked Marcus Stoinis for Rs 11 crore, and the former captain of PBKS (when it was known as the Kings XI Punjab) Gleen Maxwell for Rs 4.2 crore. Having got a specialised batter, two bowlers and two all-rounders, PBKS are looking for to fill the gap left with the absence of their last season’s opener Shikhar Dhawan, who retired from all forms of the sport, and boost the middle-order with the presence of Stoinis and Maxwell.
Nehal Wadhera (base price Rs 30 lakh) was another surprise pick by PBKS for Rs 4.20 crore. The Ludhiana all-rounder has played 20 IPL matches and scored 305 runs. He had played 14 matches in the 2023 edition and six in the last edition for Mumbai.
Harpreet Brar become the 7th pick of the evening for Rs 1.5 crore. The left-arm all-rounder has played 41 matches and scored 233 runs at a strike rate of 122.63. He has claimed 25 wickets. In 2023, he claimed 9 wickets in 13 games. Later in evening, the managed announced their 8th pick — Vishnu Vinod for Rs 95 lakh. Vinod, the Kerala wicketkeeper-batsman, was brought on board by Delhi Capitals for Rs 20 lakh in 2021. Karnataka bowler Vyshak Vijaykumar was also picked for Rs 1.80 crore. The tenth pick came as medium pacer Yash Thakur for Rs 1.60 crore.
“I haven’t spoken to him yet. He’s been a successful captain in the IPL before and I have worked with him for a couple of years, and he was the championship winner last season,” said Ricky Ponting, head coach, while referring to Iyer during an open interview from the auction centre in Jeddah.
“He will be a great leader for our team if we decide to go that way, which I’m pretty sure we probably will,” said Ponting.
One of the biggest surprises was Chahal’s auction, who was picked for Rs 6.50 crore by his previous team. As many as five teams placed bids for the right-arm leg-break bowler. “We wanted to fill certain gaps with the best players we possibly could. We spent a bit of money to get there (with Chahal), but what we are trying to do is rebuild this team basically from the ground up and we can’t do that without the best players,” added Ponting.
On Arshdeep, the coach said: “Arshdeep is obviously the first one in. He has been in our team for a number of years. I was really keen to get him back. The left-arm fast bowler, obviously, with a great skill set with the new ball and the old ball, is one of India’s leading wicket-takers in T20 cricket. So, he was a perfect fit for us to come back into the Punjab Kings.”
Earlier, the team had retained opener Prabhsimran Singh and middle-order explosive batter Shashank Singh.
Meanwhile, Iyer said, “I am elated to join the PBKS Kings family. I can’t wait for the season to kick-start.” “I am very happy to be back in Punjab. I hope we will win the trophy this year,” said Arshdeep. “I have a great bond with Shreyas and Arshdeep. I will get to learn a lot from Ponting,” said Chahal.
