Punjab Kings opening combination for the IPL 2022 - Mayank and Shikhar duo?

Punjab Kings opening combination for the IPL 2022: The Mohali based Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise, Punjab Kings (PBKS) had a very decent outing in terms of purchases they made in the recently wrapped IPL 2022 Mega Auction. Punjab was one of the highly active franchises during the two-day event. They certainly went on with their complete plan and opted to go after their prioritised players.

Experts believe that while a couple of players fetched by PBKS were fantastic, but there were a few players whose contract values were simply not justified. 

Shikhar Dhawan, Kagiso Rabada, Jonny Bairstow, and Rahul Chahar were their top picks during the two days auction event. 

Recently, Punjab Kings (PBKS) announced their captain for the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League. Senior opener batsman Mayank Agarwal is all set to command the Punjab Kings in the IPL 2022, confirmed the franchise.

Meanwhile, Mayank Agarwal has said that he is excited to open the batting for PBKS with southpaw Shikhar Dhawan in the IPL 2022.

“There are a lot of players in the Punjab team I am really excited about. Opening with Shikhar (Dhawan), or actually having an opportunity to play with Shikhar would be fantastic,” said Mayank Agarwal in the video posted by The Quint.

Not just for Shikhar Dhawan, Agarwal is also excited to welcome India’s U19 World Cup 2022 winning cricketer Raj Bawa in the side.

“We have picked Raj Bawa, he is going to be really exciting and I am looking forward to playing with him. Not just these two names, I am looking forward to playing with everybody,” the skipper of PBKS added.

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The youngster mustered 252 runs in the five innings of the U19 World Cup 2022 campaign. The cricketer played with a fantastic strike rate of 100 and helped India win the World Cup in the Caribbean.

Mayank Agarwal pip Shikhar Dhawan in PBKS captaincy:

While the experts rated Shikhar Dhawan way ahead of Mayank Agarwal in the captaincy race of Punjab Kings, the franchise officials had their minds stuck on the latter. The franchise opted to go with Mayank Agarwal as the captain of the side, overlooking Shikhar Dhawan’s prior experience.

It is noteworthy that Agarwal, ethically, was the best candidate to lead PBKS. He was associated with the leadership group of PBKS since 2018. He was appointed KL Rahul’s deputy in the IPL 2020 and since then he has extensively taken part in the leadership of the franchise.

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