Kings XI Punjab – Struggling to make an impression on IPL – Part Two
Continued from the previous part …
KPH Dream Cricket Private Limited owns the franchise and as per the shareholding patern, Indian film actress, Preity Zinta and businessman Ness Wadia hold 23 percent of the shares each. Other shares are owned by popular businessmen like Karan Paul, Mohit
Burman, Root Investment and Colway Investment.
Preity, who is a superstar in the sub-continent, attends nearly all her team matches and is a passionate supporter of the game. She brings a lot of glamour to the side and some cricket pundits believe that this puts additional pressure on the players.
The third season of the league turned out to be disastrous one for http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Punjab-c833 as they ended at the bottom of the points table after losing 10 out of the 14 games. This is probably the reason why Kings XI made some drastic changes for the next season, when they
did a slightly better job.
Gilchrist knows about the limitations of his team and is not thinking too far ahead of himself. The prime objective of Kings XI is to qualify for the semi-finals of the current season as the captain said, "We are looking to make the semifinal first, from
then on anything is possible in this format. Hope we get off to a positive start."
While talking about the lack of big names in the team, Gilchrist expressed that his franchise has a lesser budget as compared to Chennai Super Kings, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mumbai-c820 Indians or Royal Challengers Bangalore. However, the wicketkeeper maintains that in order to succeed
in the shortest format of the game, a team must gel well as a unit rather than over-relying on individual brilliances.
"They have got the money. The three teams with the biggest budget. They look the best side on paper but in T20 any team can win on a given day," Gilchrist said.
The captain and the coach of the franchise is also happy with the support he gets from the team management.
The wicketkeeper mentioned, "Young is one of the great motivators and has very high standards. Also the Indian bowling coach Dawes and Rathour have great knowledge of the game. As long as you have a good support staff, the task becomes easier for me in the
middle.”
Punjab had a lot of hopes from http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Paul-Valthaty-c2170 as the opening batsman performed exceptionally well in the previous edition of the tournament. However, he has looked completely out of nick in the current season, which has been a huge disappointment for Gilchrist
and company.
The franchise faced a massive blow earlier in the tournament when its new signing, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/SCJ-Broad-c2465, the English all-rounder, was ruled out of the tournament because of fitness issues. Gilchrist was relying a lot on the fast bowler as he could have been extremely
useful in the bowling friendly conditions of Mohali, which happens to be the home ground of Kings XI.
On top of that, former Pakistani all-rounder, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Azhar-Mahmood-c1116 did not get the Indian visa in time and could not take part in the initial matches. However, Azhar has joined the team now and is doing exceedingly well for Punjab with both bat and ball.
Kings XI has never been a major force in the cash-rich league and considering their current form, it looks highly unlikely that it will make it to the next round this year either. However, knowing the nature of Gilchrist, one cannot expect Punjab to go down
without fighting.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are of the author, and do not represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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