Kings XI Punjab’s mentor, Virender Sehwag reckons that they were missing out on having a strong bench comprising of Indian players in the past few seasons, as a result of which they were one of the weakest squads in Indian Premier League. However, having spent big on the Indian cricketers at the auctions this year, he is confident that they can become a side to beat in the IPL 2018. 

Talking to PTI on Tuesday, Viru said, “The kind of team we have this year, we can win the championship. We have spent a lot of money on some of the players, so hopefully, they will do the job. This surely is the best KXIP team in the last 10 years.”

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Apart from R Ashwin (₹7.6 Crore), KXIP also spent big on KL Rahul (₹11 Crore), Karun Nair (₹4.6 Crore), Ankit Rajpoot (₹4 Crore) and Barinder Iran (₹2.2 Crore). Speaking of them, Sehwag said, “Last few years, our Indian players were not that good except Wriddhiman Saha and Axar Patel. That was one gap. If you want to win the IPL, you have to have good Indian players. We have four to five of them this time.”

He further explained, “We were also struggling with Indian batting line-up which could hold the innings together. Guys like Rahul, Nair and Manoj Tiwary can hold the middle-order. We have explosive openers in Gayle and Finch, and down the order, we have David Miller. Hopefully, they will do well against spinners.”

Also read: Viru Predicts An Apt Batting Position For MS Dhoni

Marcus Stoinis (₹6.2 Crore) and Andrew Tye (₹7.2 Crore) were a couple of the big foreign players for KXIP in the recent player auction. However, Sehwag reckons that the money spent on the veteran duo of Yuvraj Singh and Chris Gayle – both bought at the base price of ₹2 Crore is their biggest steal. Sehwag went on to explain what could be deemed as ‘return on investment’ for the team.

Talking about the veterans, Sehwag said, “It is great that they have come to us at their base price. It is surely a bargain. Who knows if there were more bidders, they could have gone as high as $1 million. They are big names and match winners, even if they win two-three games for us, we would get the return on investment.”

KXIP launched their jersey on Tuesday

https://www.instagram.com/p/BgRGFvFFtoY/?hl=en

While Yuvraj is expected to be in the playing XI, Chris Gayle’s inclusion is still doubtful, especially in the presence of other openers such as Mayank Agarwal and KL Rahul in the side to complement Aaron Finch. To add to it, they also have Karun Nair, who has been opening in T20s for Karnataka lately. 

Also read: R Ashwin Reveals His Plans as KXIP skipper

Talking about the team combination, Viru said, “Finch is not available for the first game so most likely Gayle will play in his place. So the opening game is not a problem but we have a big headache after that. We will all sit together and take the call. I believe Finch is such a player that he can play anywhere.”

KXIP begin their IPL 2018 campaign away from home at the Feroz Shah Kotla against Delhi Daredevils on April 8.