The mega Indian Premier League (IPL) auction is just around the corner, and teams have been working on strategies to assemble the much-talked-about “core group” of players ever since the retention policy was confirmed by the Governing Council.
Ahead of the auction, Virender Sehwag, the Mentor and Head of Cricket Operations of Kings XI Punjab has revealed that the franchise would be using their two Right to Match Cards on Indian players and one Right to Match Card on a foreign player.
KXIP have an option of using all the three RTM cards as they retained just one player on the retention day. They opted to go with Axar Patel ahead of several T20 superstars as they look to build a team that could help them claim their maiden IPL title.
The Priety Zinta co-owned franchise has a purse value of INR 67.5 Crores for the auction.
When it comes to the Indian players’ slot, KXIP has quite a few options: Murali Vijay, Mohit Sharma Ishant Sharma, Sandeep Sharma, Manan Vohra and Mohit Sharma. And, KXIP might opt for their most reliable bowlers — Sandeep Sharma and Mohit Sharma.
Among the foreign international, KXIP will be inclined to retain the Australia all-rounder Marcus Stoinis.
Stoinis is capable of picking up wickets at crucial moments and taking the game away with the bat, he is the ideal all-rounder that a team wants. He can operate as the finisher in the batting line-up or even open the batting affords a flexibility to the batting order.
