Image Credit- AFP
All of the Kings’
players are available to play this season. But if they advance to the playoffs
and the anticipated May 26 championship game, they may be without Sam Curran,
Liam Livingstone, and Jonny Bairstow, who may be playing for England in a five-match
Twenty20 International series against Pakistan at home starting on May 22.
With him is Harshal
Patel, who can bowl at the end of the game and in the middle of overs.
Adaptable to the pitch, he can bowl 24 slower balls at different lengths. Along
with Kagiso Rabada, Harshal bolsters the pace department, which also includes
Sam Curran and Arshdeep Singh, two left-handers.
Top-order and new-ball backups are Chris Woakes and Rilee Rossouw,
respectively. In all parts of the game, Rossouw is a threatening batsman.
Despite missing out on the last three IPL seasons, Woakes has enough experience
to contribute both at bat and with the ball.
All-round bowlers
who can stretch the batting innings and deliver strikes, such as Curran, Rishi
Dhawan, and Sikandar Raza, are available for the Kings. It enables them to use
an Impact Player as an added benefit as opposed to a need.
They have a diverse group of Indian bowlers as well. Rahul Chahar, Harshal, and
Arshdeep have experience and add diversity to the assault. Kings have a
conditions-based selection call thanks to Vidwath Kaverappa’s pace and Harpreet
Brar’s left-arm spin. Thus, they will have six or seven bowling alternatives
going into each game.
In the middle order,
kings lack a robust Indian core. Shashank Singh replaced M Shahrukh Khan,
albeit there was some uncertainty at the bidding.
Although Jitesh Sharma, who showed promise as a finisher last year, will be
important, the Kings may still be overly dependent on Dhawan, Bairstow, and
Livingstone, three of their more seasoned hitters, to do well this year.
Despite his lightning-fast boundary-clearing, Livingstone is coming off a
disappointing SA20 season in which he scored just 109 runs in nine innings.
Raza is also a member of the Kings team, but it may be difficult to fit him
into the starting lineup because Rabada, Curran, and Livingstone are the
first-choice foreign starters. They also hope Shikhar Dhawan remains healthy
and has a good season because their probable XI is thin on captaincy
candidates.
With the comforts of
home, albeit a new one—the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket
Stadium in Mullanpur, which will host its first-ever IPL match—the Kings will
open their season against the Delhi Capitals on March 23. They take on Royal
Challengers Bangalore in Bengaluru two days later. After that, there would be a
five-day break between their road games against Gujarat Titans and Lucknow
Super Giants.