IPL 2018: Virender Sehwag wants two 'Punjab stars' in KXIP squad

Virender Sehwag has always spoken his mind. A sensation on Twitter, the squash buckling opener is as flamboyant with his words as he was in his playing days. After his retirement, at the age of 39, Sehwag continues to coach and do some punditry. He has been fantastic with that as well.

The former Indian opener sat down with Times of India and talked about IPL and ousted players. He was quite vocal about certain things and like his bat, his words were hitting the questions out of the stadium. Sehwag talked about his team KXIP, Yuvraj Singh and he did not forget to talk about Ashish Nehra as well.

On KXIP being a ‘small’ team

Virender Sehwag was asked whether his team is smaller than any other team. It is because the team from Punjab don’t have big Indian names. Sehwag denied it straight away and said that no team is small. He was quick to remind that they reached the finals in 2014 with young Indian players. He also said that the purse for every team in the auction is the same, so it is just about buying smart for Viru.

“There isn’t any small team in the IPL, the purse size (Rs 80 cr) stays the same for all and everyone will try to spend their entire purse. In fact, in this year’s auction, the best part is that we and Rajasthan Royals have the most amount of money to spend.

“However, we’re called a ‘small’ team because we don’t have ‘big’ players. In 2014, we had a team with not too many star players, but we reached the final using a limited purse. Our aim this time is to spend money to buy many Indian players,” Viru added.

His ‘wishlist’ for the auction

Virender Sehwag is a huge admirer of exuberant batters and that is what he is looking for. The fact that they have only retained Axar Patel shows that KXIP is looking to rebuild the team from scratch. When asked about who he would target at the auction, Virender Sehwag was quick to talk about dodge the question and said, for the fans, it would be the Punjab boys.

“I think the fans would want Punjab stars like Yuvraj and Harbhajan Singh in the Kings XI team,” said Viru. The name of Yuvraj Singh led to another question which saw the former Indian vice-captain back the southpaw. He said the Yuvraj Singh is not done yet and he will be back in the Indian team sooner rather than later.

“He’s not in the Indian team, but Yuvraj is still an amazing player. His talent is intact. Even a current India player can lose form. I don’t think we’ll get a player like him again. If his form his good, he’s a match-winner,” said Virender.

On the in-demand players in auction

Sehwag didn’t blink while taking these names. He was quite sure that players like Ben Stokes, Dwayne Bravo and some others will be in demand. He also talked about how much these players will cost in the auction which is scheduled on 27th and 28th of January.

“Ben Stokes, Dwayne Bravo and Mitchell Starc are the international players everyone wants. I won’t be surprised if Stokes goes for around $1.5 million. I expect the capped India players to fetch around Rs 10-12cr too. Among the uncapped players, Krunal Pandya and Deepak Hooda would be in demand,” concluded Sehwag.

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