IPL 2016 Auction Analysis: Kings XI Punjab

Total Players: 22

Auction Spend: Rs. 10.55 crores

When other teams were bidding for the star players, Kings XI were playing the waiting game. Maybe they were waiting for Christmas or the next season to make a bid. They spent the least at the auction and picked eight players, close to 60% of they 10.55 crores they spent was on Mohit Sharma. They failed to bring in any good Indian middle-order batsman while there were many in the fray. KXIP had the opportunity to fill the gap in their batting but they failed miserably at that.

Even in the all-rounders, they brought in Marcus Stoinis who had a decent BBL. But the surprise pick was FarhaanBehardien, who hasn’t really done enough to justify his spot in the South African national side, so KXIP picking him over other all-rounders was really a bad move.

They brought in Kyle Abbott, which might be their best pick. In the seaming wickets at Dharamshala and Mohali, Abbott will be quite effective for KXIP and they might even prefer him over Mitchell Johnson in the long run as the latter has now retired. Mohit Sharma has been really good in the IPL and with his change-ups might be the ideal partner for Kyle Abbott and Axar, Rishi Dhawan, Sandeep can all form a decent bowling attack.

They have some holes in their batting line-up and will now be over-dependent on their foreign players yet again to bring the goods.

Kings XI Punjab predicted XI:

Murali Vijay, Manan Vohra, Shaun Marsh, Wriddhiman Saha, Glenn Maxwell, David Miller, Rishi Dhawan, Axar Patel, Kyle Abbot, Mohit Sharma, Sandeep Sharma.