IPL 2019: 3 key overseas players for Kings XI Punjab
Kings XI Punjab are one of the teams with the poorest record in the IPL. They reached the semi-finals in 2008 and were the runners-up in 2014, but apart from that, the team produced disappointing performances in every other year.
Some of the players Kings XI bought in this year’s auction are Sam Curran, Nicholas Pooran, Varun Chakravarthy and Mohammed Shami. They retained most of their key players including KL Rahul, Mujeeb Zardan, David Miller and Mayank Agarwal.
This year, the team will be captained by Ravichandran Ashwin and the coach is Mike Hesson.
Kings XI will play their first match of this IPL against Rajasthan Royals on March 25 at Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur
On that note, here’s a look at the 3 key overseas players for Kings XI in this edition of the IPL.
#3 Sam Curran
20-year-old Sam Curran is one of the most exciting all-rounders English cricket has produced in recent times. He is a left-handed batsman and a left-arm medium pace bowler. He made his first-class debut for Surrey at the age of 17.
He has picked up 133 wickets in 51 first-class matches. He averages 28.70 with the bat in first-class cricket. He has picked 15 wickets from 9 test matches.
Curran made his international debut in mid-2018 against Pakistan. But he came into the spotlight when he was named England's Player of the Test Series against India last year. He made 272 runs and picked up 11 wickets in the series.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) named Curran as one of the five breakout stars in men's cricket in 2018.
He entered the IPL auction with the base price of ₹2 crores and Kings XI Punjab bought him for a whooping ₹7.2 crores. He is expected to open the bowling for Punjab along with Andrew Tye and will bat at the lower-middle order.
It will be interesting to see how he is going to perform in Indian conditions.