While all eyes are stuck on the ongoing T20 World Cup 2022, IPL franchises are busy brainstorming over the upcoming mini-auction on December 16. With November 16 being the deadline to submit the list of final retentions, an Espncricinfo report citing a highly placed source claimed that the prolific batter who is also a captain of his franchise will be replaced by his teammate and experienced opener, also one of the most consistent batters in India's T20 domestic tournament will be trusted with a responsibility to lead a franchise.
It is none other than Shikhar Dhawan who is set to replace Mayank Agarwal as the captain of Punjab Kings for the IPL 2023 season. Interestingly, Mayank Agarwal was trusted with the full-time role to lead the squad in IPL 2022, but fresh reports are suggesting that he will soon be asked to leave the job following franchise's poor performance in this year's IPL.
Meanwhile, Dhawan who is regarded as one of the most consistent batters in the tournament had a terrific outing once again as he was among the top-ten batter with the most runs in the edition. Dhawan scored 460 runs in 14 innings in IPL 2022 including three half-centuries with an unbeaten 88 being his highest score. Speaking of the upcoming mini-auction, IPL franchises can retain up to 15 players this time and will be forced to release the rest of the ten.
It will be interesting to see if Punjab Kings will retain Mayank Agarwal or not as the skipper could not impress with his bat. Agarwal scored only 196 runs in 12 innings of 13 matches at an average of 16.33. As per a report, published in InsideSport, BCCI is mulling an idea to hold IPL mini auctions outside India and Istanbul is the preferred destination.
"Istanbul is a great holiday destination and has all the amenities to conduct the auction there. Most of the franchise are on board with it. The idea is to take it to different shores like NBA does to raise awareness and build new fanbases. But we are still in talks and a decision will be taken in the next GC meeting,” a source was quoted in this InsideSport report.
