New Delhi: Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Kings XI Punjab has been renamed to Punjab Kings, co-owner of the franchise, Mohit Burman has confirmed.
Burman has also said that the franchise will unveil a new logo on Wednesday ahead of the upcoming mini-auction slated to be held in Chennai on Thursday. "We put it to research, both with fans and with closed groups, and have finally arrived at the new name. The idea behind the new name is to add a fresh look and a fresh feel to the franchise. As with any product/service, everything has its own life cycle and we believe given the changing ethos and the audience taste we thought it was apt for the brand to go through a complete new refresh," ESPNcricinfo quoted Burman as saying.
Ness Wadia, Preity Zinta, and Karn Paul are the other co-owners of the franchise. The KL Rahul-led side had finished in sixth place in IPL 2020.
On January 20, the Punjab-based franchise announced that they have decided to retain 16 members of their IPL 2020 squad and the likes of Glenn Maxwell and Sheldon Cottrell have been released from the squad.
The likes of KL Rahul, Nicholas Pooran, and Mohammad Shami will be seen for the franchise his season. While, key performers of last season like Arshdeep Singh, Chris Gayle, and Ravi Bishnoi have also been retained.
Australia's Glenn Maxwell who had a poor IPL 2020 season has been released. Maxwell was bought for INR 10.75 crores ahead of the 2020 season, but he was not able to do justice to his price tag. The franchise now has the strongest purse this auction at Rs 53.9 crore and the side can now fill nine slots to reach the maximum squad strength of 25.
Retained players: Chris Gayle, Deepak Hooda, Mandeep Singh, Mayank Agarwal, Sarfaraz Khan, KL Rahul, Nicholas Pooran, Prabhsimran Singh, Arshdeep Singh, Chris Jordon, Darshan Nalkande, Harpreet Brar, Ishan Porel, Mohammed Shami, Ravi Bishnoi, and Murugan Ashwin.
Released players: Glenn Maxwell, Sheldon Cottrell, Mujeeb-Ur-Rahman, Jimmy Neesham, Hardus Viljoen, K Gowtham, Karun Nair, Jagadeesha Suchith, Tejinder Singh.
Punjab is yet to win the IPL title and the side has made it to the finals in 2014. But they suffered a loss to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
