With just a month remaining for the IPL 2023 mini-auction, franchises are starting to do the match and select which players to retain, and which should be released. Punjab Kings are one of the franchises who spent a lot of money in the IPL 2022 mega auction, purchasing some good players but they narrowly missed out on IPL playoffs berth.
Now for the IPL 2023 season, the Mohali-based franchise are ready to make some changes, including changing the captain. Mayank Agarwal is set to be replaced by Shikhar Dhawan as the captain of Punjab Kings according to RevSportz.
Dhawan has ample experience of leading teams in the IPL as well, and he will captain the Indian team as well in New Zealand in the absence of Rohit Sharma. Dhawan has been leading the ODI team for much of the year 2022, and the Kings want to capitalise on that.
READ| T20 World Cup Group B points table: Decoding chances of each team to reach semifinal
Under Mayank’s captaincy, Punjab Kings finished sixth in IPL 2022, despite having plenty of match winners like Liam Livingstone, Dhawan, Odean Smith, and Kagiso Rabada among many others.
For the unversed, the franchise co-owned by Bollywood actress Preity Zinta has not qualified for the playoffs since 2014. They had reached the final that year but lost to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the summit clash.
There was plenty of speculation regarding the Punjab Kings’ captaincy last year as well, although the management decided to back Agarwal. However, they are likely to back Dhawan ahead of the upcoming IPL campaign in their bid to go all the way.
Earlier, they had also announced a change in the helm as Trevor Bayliss will be the new head coach of the team, replacing Anil Kumble.
