Preity Zinta excited about IPL 2018 after picking a strong squad

The Kings XI Punjab fared well at the IPL auction. After deciding to retain only one player from the previous team, they brought 20 players at the auction. They went into the auction with a purse balance of Rs 67.5 crores and at the end were left with Rs 10 lakhs. Their costliest pick was KL Rahul who bagged Rs 11 crores followed by R Ashwin at Rs 7.60 crores. Further, they used their RTMs for Mohit Sharma, David Miller, and Marcus Stoinis.

The franchise made some decent purchases at the auction. Although they invested some big amounts on a few players, the bids of Yuvraj Singh and Chris Gayle were a steal deal for the Punjab franchise. They brought 7 batsmen, 7 bowlers, and 7 all-rounders in this auction. Barring 2008 and 2014, the KXIP team never crossed the league stage.

Preity Zinta is a happy owner

Earlier in the auction, Preity was in a shopping mode. She went on a spree and raised the paddle at every possible player. Also, she raised the bids for many players disrupting many franchises’ strategies. Moreover, she was mocked by the fans and also KXIP’s head coach Virender Sehwag for this. At one point, Kings XI Punjab had bought five consecutive players including KL Rahul.

Karun Nair, Aaron Finch, Manoj Tiwary, and Andrew Tye are some of the other notable additions to the squad. However, they haven’t picked a captaincy material in the auction. At this stage, it is quite ambiguous about who will be leading the Kings XI Punjab. There are chances of Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuvraj Singh or Aaron Finch leading the side. Moreover, there were many talks before the auction that one of the teams will be looking to make Ashwin their skipper.

On paper, the Punjab side has always been a strong one. However, they couldn’t convert it into performances on the field. In this auction too, KXIP acquired a good and balanced team. Co-owner Preity Zinta took it to Twitter to thank Virender Sehwag and Brad Hodge for all their efforts and hard work to build a new squad. She also added that she is very excited.

Here is what she tweeted:

A big thank you to @virendersehwag & @bradhodge007 for all their efforts & hard work in Building the new #Kxipsquad ? I’m so thrilled ??Ting

— Preity zinta (@realpreityzinta) January 28, 2018