IPL | Sridharan Sriram roped in by Kings XI Punjab as Venkatesh Prasad departs

Kings XI Punjab had assembled one of the strongest squads in the last year’s IPL auction courtesy of some smart bidding done by the owners and the team management. Many even backed the Punjab-based franchise to be outside favorites to lift the IPL trophy for the 2018 season.

However, they failed to live up to the expectations placed on them as the R Ashwin-led franchise failed to make it to the play-off stage despite getting a good start in the tournament. As a result, there have been some important changes going on in the backroom staff and squad as well of the KXIP outfit in order to find the right balance for the coming season.

Latest to depart was former Indian pacer Venkatesh Prasad. Prasad will be replaced by Sridharan Sriram, who was an assistant coach for Delhi Daredevils and the spin bowling coach of the Australian team. This came after the Preity Zinta’s franchise recently replaced Brad Hodge with Mike Hesson as their head coach for the 2019-20 season. Previously, Hesson was the coach of New Zealand.

The Mohali-based team also brought in Prasanna Agoram, the technical strategy Analyst at Cricket South Africa (CSA), as their high-performance coach. The likes of Smith, Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn have all credited the Indian as the mastermind behind SA’s consistency in the past years.

KXIP have also traded their star all-rounder Marcus Stoinis to Royal Challengers Bangalore in exchange for middle-order batsman - Mandeep Singh. Stoinis had been sold to the RCB at the 2018 auctions but KXIP used their Right-To-Match card, paying a whopping INR 6.20 crore. Whereas RCB had outbid KXIP for Singh at the auction last year and had the winning bid of INR 1.40 crore.

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