5 players who can be a surprise package in IPL 2020

2. Tom Banton

Tom Banton is on everybody’s ‘to watch out for’ list for the upcoming IPL season. England’s golden boy was bought by Kolkata Knight Riders for a hefty deal of one crore INR in the auctions. He was the second-highest run-scorer in the Blast 2019 scoring 549 runs in 13 innings with an average of 42, striking at 161. The right-hander also smashed a 51-ball-hundred against Kent displaying his 360-degree range of shots.

Banton was mentored by former English opener, Marcus Trescothick at Somerset. The 20-year-old grabbed England’s Young Player of the Year award. Soon he received a national call up for the T20Is against New Zealand and gave a glimpse of his ball-striking penchant. In the T10 League last year, Banton scored 162 runs in 5 innings at a strike rate of 200 with a couple of half-centuries.

KKR under Gautam Gambhir launched Sunil Narine as an opener and Manvinder Bisla in the final of IPL 2012 against CSK. Dinesh Karthik is an experienced campaigner and a shrewd captain. He has shown commendable leadership qualities in the way he handled the young Indian players as a skipper for KKR in the past couple of seasons. Both Sunil Narine and Andre Russell are injury-prone and therefore Banton could be the guy to set the Eden ablaze.