Kings XI Punjab in Indian Premier League
8th April (CRICKETNMORE) - Though this team goes by the name of Kings XI Punjab, the coveted crown of the IPL has so far eluded them and so far have been the whipping boys in the IPL, except some good performances in the inaugral and 2014 edition. Apart from last year, where they lost to the Kolkata Knight Riders in the finals, their best season was in 2008, where under Yuvraj Singh's captaincy they reached the semi-finals. Throughout the years, there were a lot of frailties in the team composition – either the batting unit failed to click consistently or the bowling let them down on many occasions.
The Punjab team was bought by Dabur group's Mohit Burman, the Wadia group's Ness Wadia, Preity Zinta, and Karan Paul of the Apeejay Group for $76 million. Their icon player was Yuvraj Singh and in the 2008 season they had Kumar Sangakkara, Brett Lee, Simon Katich, Irfan Pathan and Mahela Jayawardena. However, the find of the tournament was Aussie Shaun Marsh who was their batting mainstay and Orange cap winner with 616 runs. Though they started their campaign on a bad note, losing their first two matches, they won the next nine of their ten matches to power through to the semi-finals. But CSK undid them by nine wickets in the semis.
Next season, the team included West Indian paceman Jerome Taylor to bolster their bowling unit in the seam-friendly South African tracks. But a last minute injury to him coupled with the unavailability of Australian players throughout the tournament hit them hard and the team failed to win consistently. However, CSK beat them in their last group stage match to dash their semi-final hopes and the team came fifth in the league table.
Their worst season came in 2010, where they came eighth. Despite the return of Brett Lee and Shaun Marsh they were unable to get the winning momentum. This year they were captained by Mahela Jayawardene replacing countryman Kumar Sangakkara.
Following the controversy surrounding the BCCI and Lalit Modi the IPL governing council terminated the franchise contracts of Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals since it was alleged that Modi had a conflict of interest in the bidding process of the franchises. However, the team was reinstated before the 2011 IPL with involvement from the High Court. In the auctions they acquired players like Adam Gilchrist, who was made the skipper, David Hussey, Ryan McLaren, Mandeep Singh, Ryan Harris and Piyush Chawla. However, they again fell short of winning one match to enter the play-offs and finished fifth.
In 2012, they added South African hard-hitting batsman David Miller and ex-Pakistan player Azhar Mahmood into thier squad. The team blew hot and cold throughout the season and won only eight out of their sixteen matches with many faulting thier poor team selection.
In 2013, inconsistency gripped them again and came sixth in the points table. But the edition will be best remebered for Miller's 101 not out off 38 deliveries against Bangalore where he came when the team was precariously placed at 51-3 and took them home chasing a 190-run target.
The team went for a complete overhaul in the 2014 edition and retained only a few players, inculding David Miller. They bought impact players like George Bailey (who was made the skipper), Virender Sehwag, Mitchell Johnson, Glen Maxwell and Wriddhiman Saha. And off they went onto a dream start winning their first five matches consecutively, mainly due to the heroics of Glen Maxwell whose scores in the first three mathes read-95, 89, 95. Virender Sehwag too got in to the act at a later stage and his 122-run knock in the semi-finals against CSK was instrumental in taking them to the finals. But, a splendid knock from KKR's Manish Pandey was all it took to dash their hopes of laying hands on their maiden IPL trophy.
Abhishek (CRICKETNMORE)