Shikhar Dhawan will reportedly be announced as the captain of Indian Premier League franchise Punjab Kings. Dhawan joined PBKS after being bought for Rs 8.25 crore at the IPL 2022 mega auction held in Bengaluru last weekend.
The captaincy spot was left vacant after KL Rahul reportedly asked the team to release him last year following which he was drafted by new franchise Lucknow Super Giants. It was being speculated that opener Mayank Agarwal, one of the two players that the team decided to retain, would succeed Rahul into the role by the latest reports claim otherwise.
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Dhawan was released by Delhi Capitals despite three productive seasons for them. He joined the team in 2019 and scored over 500 runs in each of his three seasons for them.
Despite scoring 1726 runs in three seasons, DC let go of him and retained Rishabh Pant, Prithvi Shaw, Anrich Nortje and Axar Patel ahead of the auction.
PBKS spent the most on acquiring England allrounder Liam Livingstone, shelling out a Rs 11.5 core for him. They also bought the likes of Kagiso Rabada, Jonny Bairstow, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Chahar among others.
In all, they have built a squad of 23 players.
PBKS co-owner Preity Zinta was mighty pleased with the arrival of Dhawan. “Yeah we got Shikhar Dhawan. Always wanted him in our team," she said.
Punjab Kings Full Squad: Mayank Agarwal, Arshdeep Singh, Shikhar Dhawan, Kagiso Rabada, Jonny Bairstow, Rahul Chahar, Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Brar, Prabhsimran Singh, Jitesh Sharma, Ishan Porel, Liam Livingstone, Odean Smith, Sandeep Sharma, Raj Angad Bawa, Rishi Dhawan, Prerak Mankad, Vaibhav Arora, Writtick Chatterjee, Baltej Dhanda, Ansh Patel, Nathan Ellis, Atharva Taide, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Benny Howell
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