IPL: Sridharan Sriram Replaces Venkatesh Prasad At Kings XI Punjab

Days after Virender Sehwag ended his association with Kings XI Punjab, former India pacer Venkatesh Prasad has also followed suit. Prasad was Kings XI Punjab’s bowling coach for one season.

Prasad will be replaced by former India cricketer Sridharan Sriram. Sriram was the assistant coach at the Delhi Daredevils, and the spin bowling coach of Australia.

The franchise, meanwhile, has pretty much changed their backroom staff. They recently roped in former New Zealand coach Mike Hesson as their head coach. Hesson had replaced ex-Australian cricketer Brad Hodge. Kings XI Punjab have also roped in Prasanna Agoram, the Technical Strategy Analyst at Cricket South Africa (CSA), as their high-performance coach. Argoram has built a huge reputation after helping South Africa become one of the most successful teams in international cricket.

South Africa legends like Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn had lauded Argoram for his role in the team’s success.

Kings XI Punjab, meanwhile, are doing their best ahead of a brand new season to form a formidable team and backroom staff to finally taste success. In addition to shaking the backroom staff, they have also traded Marcus Stoinis for Mandeep Singh from Royal Challengers Bangalore.

With Mike Hesson in the team now, Kings XI Punjab would be hoping that the team finally starts delivering. Hesson stepped down as New Zealand earlier this year, citing a “break from the rigours of international cricket” as the primary reason. It ended his impressive six-year spell with the Kiwis.

Hesson enjoyed a highly successful stint. His finest moment came in 2015 when he led the country to its first-ever World Cup final.

Under his guidance, New Zealand rose to the pinnacle of T20I rankings, number 2 in ODIs and number 3 in Tests. In April this year, New Zealand won their first-ever Test series over England since 1999. Overall, New Zealand won 21 of their 53 Tests, losing 19 under Hesson. In ODIs, they won 65 of their 119 ODIs with 46 losses and in T20Is won 30 of their 59.

The franchise is yet to lift the title. Their best performance came in 2014 when they made it to the final before losing to Kolkata Knight Riders. They had looked well set to make it to the playoffs in last edition after winning 5 of their opening 7 games. However, they ended up losing six of the last seven to bow out of the competition at the league stage.