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Piyush Chawla names Kane Williamson’s captaincy replacement for SRH
By SMCS - May 22, 2022 3:15 pm
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Piyush Chawla said that SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) shouldn’t look ahead of Bhuvneshwar Kumar while picking a captaincy replacement for Kane Williamson for their final IPL 2022 match against Punjab Kings (PBKS). However, Williamson flew back to New Zealand for the birth of his second child on Wednesday.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar
Bhuvneshwar Kumar

Apart from Bhuvneshwar, Nicholas Pooran, who was recently handed West Indies’ white-ball captaincy is also a possible choice as well. But Chawla feels the veteran pacer, with his current form, leadership experience and familiarity with the team, can be a replacement for Williamson.

He told ESPNcricinfo: “If you talk about experience, I think they can go back to Bhuvneshwar Kumar because he’s an international player, has been a part of that team for a long time, the way he’s bowling, he knows the bowling unit and knows the team environment. I don’t think there’s a better option than Bhuvneshwar Kumar.”

So far, Bhuvneshwar Kumar led in six matches in the IPL, winning two and losing the other four. Meanwhile, Williamson’s absence will also pave the way for New Zealand’s hard-hitting all-rounder Glenn Phillips in the playing XI. And, Chawla shared his views on this.

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Piyush Chawla explained: “Even if Phillips comes in for Kane Williamson, he should bat in the middle order only because of how well Priyam Garg batted in the last match. We were saying for a long time that Kane Williamson is better suited for the middle-order. He didn’t get to play a lot of balls in the last match but the impact on the batting order was tangible. The way he has bowled in this tournament, he was leaking a lot of runs, then he picked some wickets, then he was costly again. So when there’s such a big tournament, you expect that you won’t have 14 good matches, some will go bad too. The kind of bowler he is, he gives so much pace to the batters to use that when he goes for runs, it’s plenty of runs and when he takes wickets, it’s plenty of wickets. But this is the last match, he’ll want to finish on a high, bowl somewhat as he did in the previous game, and do something good for his team.”

Mayank Agarwal
Mayank Agarwal will be leading PBKS

Piyush Chawla also opined on Mayank Agarwal’s captaincy and believes that he isn’t suited for the role. He added that in his first leadership stint at Punjab Kings (PBKS) in IPL 2022, the pressure affected his batting and his on-field attitude wasn’t good either.

He said, “The way he performed [last year] they (Punjab Kings) showed a lot of trust in him, retained him too but he couldn’t stand true to it. I don’t think he had much prior experience of captaincy whether in domestic cricket or with India ‘A’ and that was visible here. The pressure of captaincy is different and it was clearly visible in his batting as well as how he used to look a bit edgy on the field. Captaincy isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and it showed clearly here.”

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“You showed so much trust in Shahrukh Khan [in the auction]. His domestic season had gone so well. But you dropped him after just a few games. The kind of batter he should have got more chances. His batting spot is very difficult and you can’t expect him to win every game from there. The team they had on paper at the start of the tournament, looked like a solid top-4 candidate and they started well too. But some batters lost form in the middle; I also felt there was room for some tweaks in the batting order too, which they made but it was too late. And they didn’t show much trust on some players either. So it was a disappointing season for Punjab Kings. They’ll have to see what changes they can make next year. It’s still quite far away but the work starts now,” Piyush Chawla concluded.