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Ever since Preity Zeinta, a leading Bollywood actress, walked out hand in hand with her industrialist boyfriend Ness Wadia to announce her acquisition of the Mohali outfit, the spotlight was firmly trained on Yuvraj Singh’s eclectic team.
As the dust has settled down over the auctions and the gaps have been filled, the Kings XI Punjab look to be quite a sprightly bunch who can give heavyweight teams such as Hyderabad or Chennai a run for their money.
While Brett Lee, who was firing on all cylinders during the Australian summer, is a prize catch for them, although Yuvraj may have to do without him after the first four matches as all the regular members of the Australia squad will have to be back for a conditioning camp for the West Indies series from the first week of May.
Punjab’s pace attack still bears a wholesome look —especially in the helpful conditions of Mohali — with both Sreesanth and Irfan Pathan capable of swinging the ball.
James Hopes, who served Australia well in the recent
one-day tri-series Down Under, will lend some variety to the pace attack with his slower stuff, while the spin department will be looked after by the stingy Romesh Pawar and Piyush Chawla’s leg spin.
On the batting front, much of their abilities to accelerate depends on their captain, and the team management will be hoping for an encore of Singh’s World Twenty20 championship form.
However, some clean hitting rather than a wild slog is what is needed in this format, and the team have no dearth of exponents of this, through Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and all-rounder Pathan.
Left-arm paceman Irfan Pathan is another who can excel with both bat and ball, and with the average age of the team being on the younger side, the Kings’ outfield game should be razor sharp.
The presence of coach Tom Moody is another key factor behind the team’s prospects.
Sport Extra prediction: The dark horses of the tournament.
Kings XI Punjab
Owner: Consortium headed by Preity Zinta
Bought for: $76 million (Dhs 279m)
Designated player: Yuvraj Singh
Most expensive player: Irfan Pathan (Ind) $925,000 (Dhs 3.3m)
Coach: Tom Moody
Squad: Yuvraj Singh (captain), Brett Lee, James Hopes, Simon Katich, Luke Pomersbach, Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, Piyush Chawla, Romesh Pawar, Karan Goel, Uday Kaul, Ajitesh Argal, Vikram Singh, Tanmay Srivastava, Rishi Dhawan, Sahil Kukreja, Pankaj Dharmani, Wilkin Mota, Nitin Saini, Sunny Sohal, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Kyle Mills, Ramnaresh Sarwan.
Player to watch: Yuvraj Singh
One of the few obvious choices as the player to watch, Yuvraj is expected to lead his men by example. Billed as the most exciting left-handed batsman after Brian Lara in contemporary cricket, Singh has been struggling with his form in recent times —with a freakish injury hardly helping matters in between.
However, the IPL could just be the launching pad for his return to form as the Punjab da puttar (son of Punjab) will be keen to do his team a good turn. Don’t discount his slow left-arm bowling either.
Fixture List
April 19 Chennai Super Kings Mohali
April 21 Rajasthan Royals Jaipur
April 25 Mumbai Indians Mohali
April 27 Delhi Daredevils Mohali
May 1 Deccan Chargers Hyderabad
May 3 Kolkata Knight Riders Mohali
May 5 Bangalore Royal Challengers Bangalore
May 10 Chennai Super Kings Chennai
May 12 Bangalore Royal Challengers Mohali
May 17 Delhi Daredevils Delhi
May 21 Mumbai Indians Mumbai
May 23 Deccan Chargers Mohali
May 25 Kolkata Knight Riders Kolkata
May 28 Rajasthan Royals Mohali
May 30 First Semi-Final Mumbai
May 31 Second Semi-Final Mumbai
June 1 Final Mumbai
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