Punjab Kings (PBKS) is one amongst the entertaining teams of IPL. It’s fair to say that they have displayed a surprising form of cricket in every IPL season. However, they fail to handle up the pressure and mostly fail to qualify for the playoffs. Many big names have also been a part of this team and have given great joy to its fans. The IPL 2023 will again be an another opportunity for them to claim the tournament title.
Shikhar Dhawan led Punjab Kings would want to better their last position of No.6. They played in a good cricket form last year but couldn’t stick to it for long which led to their downfall. Under the new skipper it is expected that they would be look upon to end their title scarce.
Punjab Kings will open their campaign against KKR (Kolkata Knight Riders) of IPL 2023 on 1st April in Mohali. They have made a few changes to their squad from the last season. Moreover, Shikhar Dhawan will be in charge of the team for this time.
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PUNJAB KINGS SQUAD FOR IPL 2023:
Shikhar Dhawan (captain), Shahrukh Khan, Prabhsimran Singh, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Jitesh Sharma, Rishi Dhawan, Raj Bawa, Liam Livingstone, Rahul Chahar, Atharva Taide, Arshdeep Singh, Baltej Singh, Nathan Ellis, Mohit Rathee, Kagiso Rabada, Harpreet Brar, Sam Curran Raza, Shivam Singh, Harpreet Bhatia, Vidwath Kaverappa, Matthew Short and Sikandar
SWOT analysis of Punjab Kings (PBKS):
Strengths:
- Punjab have several big cricketers in batting arena. This counts captain Shikhar Dhawan, Matthew Short, Liam Livingstone, Sikandar Raza and also Sam Curran. In the bowling department, they have Kagiso Rabada, Curran and also Arshdeep Singh.
- Sam Curran was also given Player of the Tournament in the latest T20 World Cup, so he was bought for a huge sum of INR 18.50 crore. This makes him the most expensive player in the history of the tournament. Rabada can make the batters unsteady with his pace whereas Arshdeep has made his name for his death bowling.
Weakness:
Apart from Shikhar Dhawan, Punjab really don’t have any one experienced player in the batting department. Matthew Short,Liam Livingstone and Sam Curran are some of the young talents while Sikandar is yet to play his first-ever IPL season.
A lot will depend upon captain Shikhar to hold the game. However, if he will get dismissed early, the pressure will come to upon the young and inexperienced batters and this can trouble out the team.
Opportunities:
Dhawan has an experience of playing 206 matches in IPL. This player is also the second highest run scorer with a sum of 6244 runs. Also with an average of 35.08 and 126.35 as a strike rate.
Shikhar Dhawan was dropped by the Indian ODI team due to his poor form in the year 2022. The opening batter has been performing exceptionally over the past few years as he has scored over 400 runs in every edition since 2016.
Punjab has also roped in Matthew Short as a replacement for Jonny Bairstow as he failed to recover from his injury.
Threats:
Liam Livingstone has not been able to play a game since December 1 2022 due to a knee injury. He is still recovering ahead of the tournament and might not be able to play one or two games of IPL 2023. He can play a key role for Punjab Kings with his outstanding hitting capability and spin bowling.
The Punjab Kings management bought Sam Curran in the mini-auction for a sum as huge as INR 18.5 crore to get him onboard on PBKS. However, he wasn’t at his best of form at that time. Having spent majority of their purse to get Sam Curran back in Punjab, the team now has to rely on the all-rounders to perform extremely well with both bat and ball.
The 27-year-old cricketer, Shahrukh Khan was bought for a big amount of 9 crore at the auction in 2022 but he is yet to prove himself in the IPL.
PUNJAB KINGS MATCH SCHEDULE FOR IPL 2023:
- April 1 – Punjab Kings (PBKS) vs Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Mohali at 3:30PM IST
- April 5 – Rajasthan Royals (RR) vs Punjab Kings(PBKS), Guwahati at 7:30PM IST
- April 9 – Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) vs Punjab Kings (PBKS), Hyderabad at 7:30PM IST
- April 13 – PBKS vs Gujarat Titans (GT), Mohali at 7:30PM IST
- April 15 – Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) vs PBKS, Lucknow at 7:30PM IST
- April 20 – Punjab Kings vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mohali at 3:30PM IST
- April 22 – Mumbai Indians (MI) vs PBKS, Mumbai at 7:30PM IST
- April 28 – PBKS vs LSG, Mohali at 7:30PM IST
- April 30 – Chennai Super Kings (CSK) vs PBKS, Chennai at 3:30PM IST
- May 3 – PBKS vs MI, Mohali at 7:30PM IST
- May 8 – KKR vs PBKS, Kolkata at 7:30PM IST
- May 13 – Delhi Capitals (DC) vs PBKS, Delhi at 7:30PM IST
- May 17 – PBKS vs DC, Dharamsala at 7:30PM IST
- May 19 – PBKS vs RR, Dharamsala at 7:30PM IST
ALSO READ: https://criccrunch.com/top-5-moments-in-ipl-feat-rcb/
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