IPL preview: Kings XI Punjab

For years, the Kings XI Punjab struggled to make a mark on the Indian Premier League. After making it to the semi-finals in the very first edition, Punjab went five seasons without a playoffs berth. They came close in 2009 but a heart-wrenching defeat to the Chennai Super Kings ended their chances and that was followed by a below-par 2010 campaign in which they lost 10 of their 14 games.

Over the next three years, the Kings XI Punjab won and lost equal number of games but that wasn’t enough to help their cause, before the corner was turned under the watch of Australia's stand-in ODI skipper George Bailey and coach Sanjay Bangar. While Bailey wasn’t their biggest knight in the shining armour when it came to batting, he inspired his team to the top spot in the group stage and to a runner-up spot in IPL 2014. And Bangar’s calm demeanour off the field gained a thumbs up from fans and experts alike. 

What this change in fortune has done is to give Punjab the look of a stable team. They released just three of their players from last season, moving on from Cheteshwar Pujara, L Balaji and Murali Kartik and brought in three others. Of them, opening batsman Murali Vijay makes for a lot of sense given they already have Virender Sehwag at the top of the order for them. 

With three of the four Australians in the squad coming from the 2015 World Cup-winning team, Kings XI Punjab will look to feed off that momentum and go the distance in this year’s IPL.

Strengths
Punjab's batting and their captain-coach combination must rank among their biggest strengths. In Sehwag, Vijay, Glenn Maxwell and David Miller they have batsmen who can hit them cleanly and chase down any kind of chase. Vijay, Bailey and Wriddhiman Saha can also provide stability to the batting while the skipper’s partnership with coach Bangar has already been widely lauded and could go a long way in providing the side the required launching pad in the tournament.

Weaknesses
The one chink that opposition could exploit in the Kings XI Punjab side is their lack of experienced spin bowling options. In home conditions at Mohali, where the pitch is either flat or laced with grass, spinners do not come into play as much as elsewhere in the country, but the Kings XI plays only four home games in Mohali this season. And on top of that, Punjab’s first game in Mohali comes on April 27, by which time they would have already played six matches across the length and breadth of the country. Apart from the all-round options of Maxwell and Axar Patel, Punjab has Karanveer Singh, Shivam Sharma, Nikhil Naik and Yogesh Golwalkar, who have a combined T20 experience of 26 games between them. Will that be enough?

Predicted Finish
They have the right ingredients to make the playoffs, but once they get there it could depend on the pitches they play on. On the flatter ones they might be able to push forward, but if the slow tracks that stop on the batsmen come into the picture, they might have trouble stopping the opposition.

Squad
George Bailey, Murali Vijay, Anureet Singh, Axar Patel, David Miller, Beuran Hendricks, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Glenn Maxwell, Manan Vora, Mitchell Johnson, Karanveer Singh, Shivam Sharma, Rishi Dhawan, Parvinder Awana, Sandeep Sharma, Shaun Marsh, Shardul Thakur, Virender Sehwag, Thisara Perera, Wriddhiman Saha, Nikhil Naik, Yogesh Golwalkar

Coach: Sanjay Bangar
Bowling coach: Joe Dawes
Fielding coach: R Sridhar
Strength & conditioning coach: Nishant Thakur
Video analyst: Ashish Tuli
Physiotherapist: Patrick Farhart

IPL Season Previews

• Chennai Super Kings
• Delhi Daredevils
• Kings Xi Punjab
• Kolkata Knight Riders
• Mumbai Indians
• Rajasthan Royals
• Royal Challengers Bangalore
• Sunrisers Hyderabad