Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) completely revamped their team after finishing in the bottom half of the league table in IPL 10. Owners Preity Zinta and mentor Virender Sehwag spent big and hard in the IPL 2018 auction to form a formidable team for upcoming season of IPL.
However, one thing that every KXIP fan was wondering was who will lead the team. Captaincy has been a big issue since Adam Gilchrist retired from IPL and they have been led by George Bailey, David Miller, M Vijay and Glenn Maxwell in different seasons.
But mentor and former player Virender Sehwag went on a Facebook live chat on Monday, 26th February, 2018 and during the chat, revealed the name of the KXIP captain for upcoming IPL 2018.
The mentor revealed that premier India off spinner R Ashwin will lead the KXIP side in IPL 2018. R Ashwin previously played for Chennai Super Kings and Rising Pune Supergiant. He missed the IPL 2017 season due to a sports hernia.
CSK didn't retain him in the pre-auction player retention and were beaten by KXIP in the IPL 2018 auction when bidding for Ashwin took place. It came as a shock that CSK didn't bid hard for one of the local Chennai boys.
Ashwin is known for his acutely sharp cricketing brain and is a thinking cricketer and has said that he has amibitions of captaining a side in future.
KXIP retained just Akshar Patel and then spent big bucks on KL Rahul (INR 11 crore), R Ashwin (INR 7.6 crore), Andrew Tye (INR 7.2 crore) and Aaron Finch (INR 6.2 crore). They have a very good team which can give a tough run to the teams like Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings in the upcoming season.
