Kings XI Punjab on Sunday (October 28) sold their overseas all-rounder Marcus Stoinis to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). He became the first trade for KXIP ahead of the auction for the 12th season that will take place in mid-December. Mumbai Mirror has reported that the trade has been an all-money deal.
Stoinis was brought by the Punjab franchise in 2016 for INR 55 lakhs and he went on to play 19 matches for them across three seasons in which he scored 262 runs and nipped out 13 wickets. Last season, KXIP used the Right To Match (RTM) card on the Aussie all-rounder and bagged him for a whopping INR 6.20 crores. In the 2018 edition, the 29-year-old played only four encounters.
Mandeep Singh, the replacement for Marcus Stoinis, on the contrary, had a fairly decent season for RCB last time around. He mostly batted in the lower middle-order and racked up 188 runs in 11 matches at an average of 18.80 with one half-century to his name. The 26-year-old has previously plied his trade for Punjab, which also happens to be his home team.
It will be interesting to see how KXIP will slot Mandeep in the playing XI with the likes of Yuvraj Singh, Mayank Agarwal and Karun Nair in their ranks.
Meanwhile, RCB’s official Twitter handle tried to give a filmy sendoff to Mandeep with a famous dialogue of the Bollywood movie ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’.
“@mandeeps12 tussi jaa rahe ho… tussi na jao #PlayBold forever,” their tweet read.
https://twitter.com/RCBTweets/status/1056499330520113152
