IPL 2021: ‘The plan was to keep the core of the team’ – KXIP coach Anil Kumble hopeful of ‘filling those gaps in the coming auction’


IPL 2021: ‘The plan was to keep the core of the team’ – KXIP coach Anil Kumble hopeful of ‘filling those gaps in the coming auction’

Anil Kumble

Anil Kumble

The franchises released the list of retained players for Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 yesterday. Kings XI Punjab, who finished second in the previous edition, released nine players ahead of the auction, the second-most by a franchise after Royal Challengers Bangalore. The list of released players featured some big names in Glenn Maxwell, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Sheldon Cottrell and Jimmy Neesham.

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Karun Nair, Hardus Viljoen, Jagadeesha Suchith, Krishnappa Gowtham and Tajinder Singh complete the list of released players. Punjab coach Anil Kumble shares that the plan is to rope in proper replacements during the auction. In the last edition, KXIP missed a steady middle-order and that will top their priority list this time around.

After yesterday’s historic Test victory in Australia, we are all excited about the result, having said that it is also that time of the year where IPL preparations kick-start for the new season 2021 IPL,” Kumble said in a video posted by the KXIP’s official Twitter handle.

So today, we have retained 16 players out of the 25-member squad that we had last season. So, the plan is to fill those gaps in the coming auction so that we will be a solid team going into the 2021 IPL.

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Hopefully we will be able to turn things

KXIP

Punjab will be entering the auction with the highest purse amount, ₹53.2 crores. And Kumble is confident that they will be able to fill all the gaps this time around. KXIP have 14 slots to fill – nine domestic and five overseas. Special focus will be on roping in young Indian quicks along with some hard hitters. The former Indian coach stressed on keeping the squad similar as newcomers might take some time to adjust.

The plan was to keep the core of the team and make sure that players who were part of the team last season, continued this season as well. Hopefully this group, along with whoever we pick at the auction to fill those gaps, will be able to turn things around for Kings XI Punjab. It’s important for us to keep the squad similar and we hope for a better performance in the coming season,” Kumble adds.

The list of players retained by KXIP are KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Mayank Agarwal, Nicholas Pooran, Mandeep Singh, Sarfaraz Khan, Deepak Hooda, Prabhsimran Singh, Mohammed Shami, Chris Jordan, Darshan Nalkande, Ravi Bishnoi, Murugan Ashwin, Arshdeep Singh, Harpreet Brar, Ishan Porel.

Also Read | Thorough list of players retained and released by eight franchises ahead of auction

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