What the franchises would look for in the IPL 2017 Auction

6. Kings XI Punjab

The 2014 edition of the IPL was the most fruitful for the franchise as they finished as the table toppers and also the runners up in the league. But after that, they have had 2 nightmares by finishing last on the points table for 2 seasons straight. Here is what the team composition looks like with the prominent players:

Openers: Murali Vijay (c), Manan Vohra, Hashim Amla

Middle Order Batsmen: Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, David Miller, Wriddhiman Saha (wk)

All-rounders: Marcus Stoinis, Gurkeerat Singh Mann

Spinners: Axar Patel

Fast bowlers: Mohit Sharma, Sandeep Sharma, Anureet Singh, Shardul Thakur

What’s required

The Kings have released 4 players from the squad which is the least amongst all the teams. They dropped Mitchell Johnson, Rishi Dhawan and Kyle Abbott and are now in need of an overseas specialist fast bowler. Tall bowlers like Kagiso Rabada or Sean Abbott could be in contention.

Similar to RPS, they lack an Indian batsman in the middle order and an uncapped Indian batsman could be picked as there are not too many experienced candidates available for the grabs. With a whopping INR 23.35 crores remaining to be spent, they can look to put an overseas all-rounder in the cart too as there is only Stoinis who does those duties.

Another possibility lies with the inclusion of a foreign spinner to support Axar Patel. At home, the spinners aren’t that effective but they lag when they travel on slow pitches. Hence someone like Imran Tahir could be a smart buy for them.

Saha will be the permanent keeper having Nikhil Naik as the backup.