NEW DELHI: The Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) on Thursday released eleven players, including hard-hitting Kashmiri batsman Manzoor Dar (Pandav) ahead of the IPL 2019 players auction to be held next year.
Pandav was picked up by Bollywood actress Preity Zinta co-owned franchise, in players’ auction for Rs 20 lakhs during last season of the cash-rich league.
Manzoor was the second cricketer from Jammu and Kashmir to find a place in IPL main team after Parvez Rasool, but he was not included in the playing eleven in any of the matches.
The released players other than Pandav include Aaron Finch, Axar Patel, Mohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh, Barinder Sran, Ben Dwarshuis, Manoj Tiwary, Akshdeep Nath, Pardeep Sahu, Mayank Dagar.
The players retained by the franchise include Lokesh Rahul, Chris Gayle, Andrew Tye, Mayank Agarwal, Ankit Rajpoot, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Karun Nair, David Miller and Ravichandran Ashwin
The released players will go into players auction that would be held prior to the start new season of the league.
“The team would like to thank the players who have been released for their contributions and wishes them the very best for the future,” a statement on KXIP’s official website read.