New Delhi: With the IPL 2018 Auctions done and dusted, franchises have done their part by picking up the best possible players for their team from the pool of 578 players. The daunting auction process which ran for a marathon 2 days finally came to an end on Sunday evening.


Though all the teams performed really well in the bidding war, undoubtedly the winners were the Kings XI Punjab. The franchise, after a decade of poor performance came out with a fresh mindset. Looking for a complete overhaul, the Punjab based franchise went all guns blazing at the auction table. Retaining only one (left-arm spinner Axar Patel) player, the franchise revamped the entire team. On papers the franchise looks a formidable group with the combination of youth and experience.


The Rajasthan and Kolkata based franchise recently got over with the second task of assigning the captain of their respective teams. The eyes of the cricket pundits will now be on the Preity Zinta’s owned team. Picking a leader in a team that includes the likes of vintage Yuvraj Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin and Jamaican explosive batsman Chris Gayle and former Punjab captain David Milller will be a difficult task for the franchise.


36-year-old, local boy Yuvraj Singh, who has represented the franchise in past seasons, seems to be the front-runner. The stylist south-paw has been a darling among the owners and fans. But will the franchise, which has entirely changed their team composition, opt for Yuvi or will it give recently transferred Ashwin the mantle of captaincy? The tricky question for now remains unanswered.


The complete list of players for Kings XI Punjab is as follows


Axar Patel (Rs 6.5 Crore - Retained)


Ravichandran Ashwin – Rs 7.6 crore


Yuvraj Singh – Rs 2 crore


Chris Gayle  - Rs 2 Crore


KL Rahul – Rs 11 crore


Karun Nair – Rs 5.6 crore


David Miller -Rs 3 crore (Retained via RTM)


Aaron Finch – Rs 6.2 crore


Marcus Stoinis – Rs 6.2 crore (Retained via RTM)


Mayank Agarwal – Rs 1 crore


Ankit Singh Rajpoot – Rs 3 crore


Manoj Tiwary – Rs 1 crore


Mohit Sharma – Rs 2.4 crore (Retained via RTM)


Mujeeb Zadran – Rs 4 crore


Barinder Sran – Rs 2.2 crore


Andrew Tye – Rs 7.2 crore


Akshdeep Nath – Rs 1 crore


Ben Dwarshuis – Rs 1.4 crore


Mayank Dagar – Rs 20 Lakh


Pradeep Sahu – Rs 20 Lakh


Manzoor Dar – Rs 20 Lakh