What’s so wrong with the Punjab Kings?

Which is the most unsuccessful team in the IPL?

If you ask this question to the general public, the most common answers would be the Punjab Kings, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Delhi Capitals and Rajasthan Royals. Out of these four, only Rajasthan Royals have a trophy to their name and even though it came long ago when their current skipper Sanju Samson was just 14, we can still rule them out. Delhi Capitals, previously known as Delhi Daredevils doesn’t have a trophy under their belt but they could’ve easily had one in their cabinet with their performances in the last couple of seasons. Under the able leadership of Ricky Ponting they’ve been on an upward curve since 2019 and with their processes set, a championship victory is under touching distance.

Now that leaves us with the perennial underperformers RCB and PBKS. Just like Delhi Capitals, RCB have made the playoffs on both the occasions since 2020 and unlike past seasons they seem to be methodical in their approach under Mike Hesson. They have set up a good scouting system, their brand value despite not winning a trophy matches up to that of the big boys and they enjoy a good social media presence. So the odd man out here are the Punjab Kings who have made the playoffs only twice in 14 years of the league’s existence and according to a Forbes report in 2020, their brand was valued only second last to Rajasthan Royals. Even from a statistical point of view, they own the lowest winning percentage among active franchises. Even Sunrisers Hyderabad who were included only in 2013 have enjoyed more playoff appearances than them.

So what’s wrong with the Punjab Kings that they have only a couple of playoff appearances in almost one and a half-decade of their existence in the IPL. To answer this question, we are going to look at some of the main features or traits of successful teams in the IPL and see what PBKS have accomplished on that front.

The Decision Makers

Auction performance is one of the major indicators of how successful a team could perform on the field. There’s even a quote that’s been going around, “Half the battle is won at the auction table”. But before we delve into auction performances, we need to look at the key personnel who overlooks the player recruitment at the auction. Every team will have a person or a group of people who have a major say in how the squad shapes up. More often than not it is the head coach like Ponting in DC, or a group of individuals like MI and KKR, or in some rare setups it is the captain himself like MS Dhoni in CSK. But with Punjab Kings, it seemed hard to figure out where and who the control was with. Maybe in recent times, it feels like Anil Kumble takes all those big decisions but it has always been a mystery in the past.

During the 2018 mega auction, Punjab Kings assembled a squad with their mentor, Virender Sehwag at the helm, and Brad Hodge was appointed as the head coach only after the auction. In 2011, they appointed Michael Bevan as the head coach just 4 days before the auction meaning he had only a small window of time to prepare for the big event. Bevan later admitted that taking over as the Punjab coach is the most high-profile job he has ever done, and said the fact he entered late into the piece meant he was a little bit nervous before the auction. Both Hodge and Bevan lasted only one season at the job and were soon replaced.

Punjab Kings have had a total of 9 head coaches over 14 years, easily the highest among all franchises, and only Tom Moody and Sanjay Bangar have held the position for more than two years in a row. Now compare this with CSK where Fleming has been the head coach of the franchise ever since 2009. This constant game of musical chairs with the head coach position meant no one could settle with their role, and as a result team building suffered. For instance, M Hesson in 2019 inherited a squad that was assembled by Sehwag, and in 2020 Anil Kumble took over a squad which was a product of two different minds at two different periods. Apart from Moody and Bangar, no one had the opportunity to build the team from scratch with their own ideas and methods, and had to settle with what was on offer.

Auction Performance

The Core

In 2008 when the IPL was launched, five out of the eight teams were assigned an icon player, and only DC, CSK and RR were exceptions to this rule. For the unknown, a player with an icon status was not made part of the players auction, and was directly assigned to their respective teams. But the catch was that the icon players received 15% more money than the highest-paid player of the team bought in the auction. Punjab Kings were assigned Yuvraj Singh as their icon player which was a great deal at that time. He was just 27 years old and was ready to get into his prime. He had a spectacular T20 WC in 2007, offered additional value with his left-arm spin, and more importantly he was a local boy which meant it was easy for the fans to relate to the franchise. In hindsight, one could say that post-2011 Yuvraj was only half the cricketer he once used to be, but any sane man would pick him as their icon player 10 out of 10 times in 2008.

Yuvraj was made the captain in the inaugural edition and they even qualified for the semi-finals. In 2009, they missed out on qualifications on NRR to the eventual champions Deccan Chargers. This was despite them being hit by injuries throughout the season. But in 2010, the KXIP management dropped Yuvraj as the captain and replaced him with Sangakkara. It remains unknown whether the decision was initiated by the owners or Tom Moody the coach, who had the Sri Lankan connect with Sangakkara. But anyhow KXIP finished last that season, and went for a complete overhaul releasing their icon player, Yuvraj Singh into the auction.

Going into the 2011 mega-auction, KXIP retained zero players from the previous squad whereas the two most successful franchises in IPL currently, MI and CSK retained four each. This would become their pattern throughout all seasons as they went into most auctions with the highest purse among all franchises. Before the 2014 mega-auction, they retained only Miller and Vohra, two not so established cricketers at that time and before the 2018 mega-auction, they only retained Axar Patel, the left arm spin allrounder but released him in 2019. Ravichandran Ashwin, KXIP’s captain in 2018 & 19 addressed this issue in a post match press conference in 2019 after they failed to qualify for the playoffs. “If you look at all the successful franchises, they retained the core they got. We really need to start producing players and have that core if you are actually going to be looking to take it forward,” said Ashwin. But ironically Ashwin was traded out to Delhi Capitals the very next season. Even currently, they’ve lost two of their potential retentions in KL Rahul and R Bishnoi to the new franchise, Lucknow SuperGiants and have only managed to retain Mayank Agarwal, an established Indian batter and Arshdeep Singh, a young prospect.

Auction Strategy

We’ve already discussed how a good auction performance goes a long way in determining the prospects of a franchise in the tournament, and now let’s see how KXIP has performed on this aspect over the years. Before delving into it, we need to first understand that the auctions weren’t a level playing field in the early days like they are currently, mainly due to the monetary aspects. In an interview to The Financial Express in 2012, Mohit Burman the co-owner of Kings XI Punjab said that the franchise haven’t yet turned profitable with them needing to pay the franchise fee to BCCI every year, and the lack of heavy sponsorships, and also the failure to attract a crowd in Mohali which affected the gate receipts. This resulted in the management enforcing some cost-cutting measures and it reflected in their auction performance.

In the 2011 auction, Punjab had at their disposal a purse of $9 million, but came out of the auction with $2.17 million left unspent. M Bevan, who was the head coach that season, pointed out that the team owners had decided to stick to a certain budget. Even in 2014, they spent the second least amount at the auction among all franchises. These cost cutting measures held them at a serious disadvantage, like in 2012, KXIP traded out D Karthik to Mumbai Indians for an undisclosed amount which was said to be easily the highest in strictly trading terms at that time. He went on to score 510 runs that season helping Mumbai Indians win their first-ever IPL title, while KXIP finished sixth that year. Not only KXIP but other teams like RR too were similar on this aspect as they resorted to Money Ball tactics to nullify the disadvantage. It was only after Star signed a huge media deal in 2017 and the franchises were no longer needed to pay the franchise fee to BCCI did KXIP become more of a presence at the auction table. Since 2018, KXIP have been more aggressive at the auction table and who could forget P Zinta, one of the co-owners of KXIP raising the paddle for almost every player in the 2018 mega-auction.

When it comes to auction strategy, Punjab Kings have been below par throughout the history of the IPL. In 2011, apart from appointing the coach only 4 days before the auction, they made a huge mistake of building their squad around an ageing Gilchrist which lacked any long term strategy at all. Gilchrist had success leading Deccan Chargers to a title in 2009 and had impressive batting numbers, but he was aged 40 at that time and was a depleting resource. As expected, he was out with an injury in 2012, missing almost half the season and his batting strike rate dipped from 147 in 2011 to 127 in the next three years. KXIP failed to qualify to the semi-finals in all three seasons under Gilchrist, and come 2014 mega-auction they had to start fresh again.

Punjab Kings went into the 2014 mega-auction with the second-highest purse amount after they opted to retain only Miller and Vohra from their previous squad. At the auction, they spent high on overseas talent as opposed to local Indian talent with their top three buys being foreigners – M Johnson at 6.5 crs, G Maxwell at 6 crs and G Bailey at 3.25 crs. While they went on to enjoy their best-ever season in 2014 reaching the finals on the back of their batting firepower, their success was short-lived as they finished last in the respective seasons in 2015 and 2016. Their failure to invest in local Indian talent came back to bite them as their overseas recruits couldn’t repeat the performances of 2014. They did nothing much to fix the squad in the respective mini-auctions and Sanjay Bangar, their head coach during the period resigned at the end of the 2016 season. From 2017 to 2020, Punjab Kings had four coaches in four years with Sehwag, Hodge, Hesson and Kumble assuming the roles which lent zero stability to the squad.

Punjab Kings have even erred on some basic stuff too, like in 2018 they announced Axar Patel as their only retention and paid him 6.5 cr but 12.5 cr was deducted from their purse due to the retention rules leaving them 6 cr short during the auction. They could’ve easily avoided it by buying him at the auction at a similar price especially with them having had one RTM left unused. The next year they released Axar into the auction looking to get him back cheap but lost the bid to DC at 5cr.

Ever since 2018, Punjab Kings have entered the auction with the largest purse at their disposal and they always make the headlines for a costly buy. Richard Madley, the ex-IPL auctioneer in a recent interview with Indian cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin’s Youtube channel said, “I never knew what was going to happen(on PBKS at the auction). I had no idea who they(PBKS) were going to bid for. When they were going. Where there were going to finish. I am not sure they did either. A strategy, if there was one, was kept so secret that not even the person holding the necessarily seem to know.”, thus summing up PBKS’s auction performances over the years..

Former IPL Auctioneer Richard Madley (@iplauctioneer) on Kings XI Punjab during the auctions pic.twitter.com/OX4ZKOigSw

— jayden (@Iionsdenkxip) February 7, 2022

Consistency in Selection and Role Clarity

Time and again both Dhoni and Rohit, the two most successful captains in the IPL have cited consistency in selections and role clarity as a major reason for their success. But Punjab Kings have always been found lacking on both these fronts. From the table below, CSK’s approach of providing the players with a longer rope is evident while the likes of RCB, KXIP and DC have the largest player representations and are yet to lift the trophy.

Punjab Kings have always been impatient with their selections and if a player doesn’t perform up to their expectations, they drop them quick and try to throw out new stuff and just hope it works. They’ll bid ferociously for a player and buy him, only to toss him away next season if the performances weren’t adequate. For instance, they bought Varun Chakravarthy, the mystery spinner for a whopping 8.4 cr in 2019 only to toss him out next year after he endured a bad time in the only game he played and was ruled out with a shoulder injury. KKR then bought him for 4crs next year and since then he has gone on to represent India in the T20 WC and has been retained by KKR this season. In 2018, they appointed R Ashwin as the captain but after lack of results, they traded him out to DC and appointed KL Rahul in his spot. Likewise, they appointed Miller as the captain in 2016 only to replace him with Murali Vijay halfway through the season. Their poor handling of Bishnoi and Shahrukh Khan, two young talents during the 2021 season meant that both of them preferred to get into the auction rather than get retained by them. This instability in the selection meant that players would often lack role clarity and were always be in a state of fear of getting dropped.

Micro-Management

Team owners getting involved in the player recruitment and team selections aren’t new to franchise cricket in general. The Punjab franchise is owned by a consortium of  Ness Wadia, Mohit Burman, Preity Zinta, and Karan Paul. Among those Zinta and Wadia have been on the public eye often and they seemed to be a team where the owners have quite a say regarding recruitment and selections at least till 2019. While there’s no clear evidence to support it, there have been instances where their CEO in 2010, Anil Srivatsa and Sanjay Bangar in 2016 have complained of micro-management. In an interview to ESPNCricinfo, Srivatsa said, “that he left because despite hiring a chief executive, micro-management made the position redundant, something both sides came to realise.” It doesn’t seem to be the case currently especially when they didn’t retain Sehwag as the mentor in 2019 to allow M Hesson, the newly appointed coach that season to have the freedom to take decisions and build his own strategy and support staff.

Playing Approach

Punjab Kings lacked big time on this front. In his first season with Punjab, KL Rahul enjoyed an outstanding IPL with the bat scoring 659 runs at a strike rate of 158.4. While the runs kept flowing in the subsequent seasons, his strike rate started dipping every passing year. He would bat through the whole innings at a slow pace and accelerated only at the end. When it came off it looked great like his 132* against RCB in 2020, but if he failed to convert the slow start it proved self destructive like his knock of 69 runs off 54 balls against RR at Sharjah in 2020. His scoring rate often had a negative impact on the team but his approach never changed. When questioned about his approach at the press-conference he commented, “Strike-rates are very, very overarted” which drew a lot of criticism. Whether it was a team initiative or an individual approach or both is not known but this slow scoring severely impacted his team’s chances as they never qualified for the playoffs during this period despite Rahul being amongst the top run-scorers every season.

Home Advantage

T20 leagues around the world have moved away from the home-away format ever since the pandemic as conducting a tournament within a hub is more manageable and easy during these times. But before that successful T20 teams used to build their squad mostly to suit their home conditions. CSK packed their team with spinners to take advantage of the slow turning wickets at Chepauk, while Perth Scorchers in BBL had an excellent pace attack to suit the quick pacy Perth wicket, and the Notts shortened the boundary dimensions at Trent Bridge to bat out teams with their batting depth making use of the good batting wickets on offer at the venue.

In 2008, Punjab Kings had Mohali as their home venue which had a good batting wicket with quite long boundary dimensions (remember Kohli’s knock in 2016 WT20 vs Australia). There was a lot of scope regarding the tactics to exploit the long boundary dimensions at the venue but KXIP had one problem. The gate revenue at Mohali wasn’t up to their expected levels which impacted their earnings. So whenever the opportunity was available they played their homes in alternate home venues at Dharamsala, Pune and Indore. There were even some controversies in 2016 when KXIP declared Dharamsala as their second home venue. The lack of home support and the reduced gate venue meant KXIP often would play half of their home games at Mohali and the remaining games at other venues. In 2018, KXIP played their first three home games at Mohali winning all three and topped the points table in the first half. In the second half of the season, they played four home games at Indore, a venue with shorter boundary dimensions unlike Mohali but managed to win only one game thus missing out on the playoffs.

Punjab Kings have historically been bad at the auctions, been inconsistent with their selections and have been poor tactically and as a result have never experienced success. After two group stage exits under Kumble in 2020 and 2021, they had the choice of moving onto Andy Flower, the head coach of their other franchise, St. Lucia Kings at the CPL. Yet they’re trusting Kumble with the job once again who must be familiar with the ins and outs of the franchise by now. Let’s all hope he repays the faith shown by both the owners and the fans who are starved for success all these years.