Kings XI Punjab mentor Virender Sehwag believes that his team have the necessary Indian bench strength needed to go all the way in IPL 2018.
Having spent big in this season’s IPL auctions, bagging some talented Indian names, Sehwag hopes this will be Kings XI Punjab’s year.
“The kind of team we have this year, we can win the title. We have spent a lot of 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,” Sehwag told the Press Trust of India.
Punjab have named spinner Ravichandran Ashwin as captain. They also have batsmen KL Rahul, Karun Nair and seamers Ankit Rajpoot and Barinder Sran among Indian stars at their disposal.
“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.”
Jersey launch with the Nawab @virendersehwag, thank you to all those who were there to support us and look forward to your continued support through the season. @lionsdenkxip pic.twitter.com/fbu99uSYxh
— Ashwin Ravichandran (@ashwinravi99) March 13, 2018
“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.”
Meanwhile, Sehwag reckons getting big-hitters Yuvraj Singh and Chris Gayle at their base price (rupees 20 million, Dh1.1m) might turn out to be a bargain deal.
“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 for a million dollars. They are big names and match winners, even if they win two-three games for us, we would get the return on investment,” he explained.
