IPL 2018: Can captain R Ashwin inspire Kings XI Punjab, a team heavy on firepower but low on X-Factor, to success?

When you talk about Kings XI Punjab's 10-year record in the Indian Premier League (IPL), two statistics stand out glaringly:
a) Three: The number of times they have drawn the wooden spoon, finishing last in the league — in 2010, 2015 and 2016.
b) Seven: The number of times they have finished in the second-half of the league table — in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

They finished runners-up in 2014, and semi-finalists in the inaugural edition in 2008.

Sport, and cricket therein, is a results-oriented business, and in summation, it can be certified that Kings XI Punjab are IPL's perennial underachievers.

So when presented with the opportunity to balance this heavily skewed statistic, it was no surprise that the franchise decided to hit total reset. They were the only franchise to retain just a single player from last year's IPL: Axar Patel. This left Preity Zinta with a loaded purse going into the January players' auction, and the sight of the KXIP owners raising their gongs at every name that came up wasn't all that surprising.

At first, it seemed like a scattergun approach to assimilating their squad. But when you look at their returns, it makes for wonderment. R Ashwin, Marcus Stoinis, KL Rahul, Aaron Finch, Andrew Tye, Chris Gayle, Yuvraj Singh, Mohit Sharma, Karun Nair, Manoj Tiwary, David Miller and Mayank Agarwal, along with Axar Patel, form their first-choice alternatives going into this 2018 IPL season.

R Ashwin will captain Kings XI Punjab this year. Image courtesy: Twitter/@LionsDenKXIP

Spread out these names and the squad appears balanced, which is the minimum requirement. Gayle, Finch, Rahul and Agarwal can share the top-order among themselves. Nair, Tiwary, Yuvraj and Miller bring up the middle-order. Ashwin and Axar are the spin elements, while Stoinis and Miller also provide the all-round flavour that is so vital for any T20 side.

And this list isn't even the whole squad; so when you add Barinder Sran and Ankit Rajpoot to Mohit and Tye, the pace resources look settled too.

At this juncture, you want to ask if this Kings XI squad has the wherewithal to upstage past results.

On paper, the simple answer is no. The lack of a coherent plan came through right from the players' auction stage. Even if there is collective depth, it's only a collection of cricketers. It is here that comparisons must be drawn with what other teams have done. The common denominator in T20 cricket is an x-factor. Does this Kings XI squad possess one?

Hard-core Kings XI fans (and we don’t know how many of those exist given the empty stands at Mohali) will argue in favour of Gayle, Yuvraj and Finch, never mind their many inconsistencies in recent seasons. They will bank on Rahul and Nair — two cricketers who have promised so much — to deliver the goods. Yet, a straight-shot comparison with other franchises paints a disappointing picture.

They do not have Mumbai Indians' firepower of Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Keiron Pollard, Jasprit Bumrah and Mustafizur Rahman. They do not have Chennai Super Kings' winning formula of MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo and Faf du Plessis. They do not have the awe-inducing stars like Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers like Royal Challengers Bangalore do. They don't even have the chutzpah Rajasthan Royals will exhibit when they field Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer and D’Arcy Short together. Already four teams are theoretically ahead of Punjab.

The thing about T20 cricket is that it is not played on paper. In a six-week-long tournament like the IPL, one or two matches can be won or lost as a direct consequence of firepower, awe, experience or chutzpah. The rest, pretty much, comes down to calculation and how you front up to the challenge against a particular opposition on a given day. And this is where Kings XI probably boast an advantage, for they have a shrewd captain in place.

One of the key positives to emanate from the players' auction was installing Ashwin as skipper. There was a school of thought that Kings XI could succumb to emotion and hand Yuvraj the captaincy. But with Virender Sehwag sitting on their bench, it was good to see a pragmatic decision.

Picking Ashwin as captain puts them on par with other teams in the fray — with Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi Daredevils — and arguably even ahead of the likes of Rajasthan, Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad, who have potential leadership issues to worry about.

Ashwin is calculative like Dhoni. Like Kohli, he wears his heart on his sleeve. Like Rohit, he can be a game changer. He is as aggressive as Gambhir.

Simply put, the off-spinner is a raging competitor whether on or off the field, and he sets high standards. He will push himself — and the team — that extra yard should the need arise, and rest assured it will in a tournament like the IPL. He will not baulk at dropping Gayle, or even Yuvraj, should the numbers not back their selection. At the same time, he is also likely to gamble and bring out a few surprising moves, something he has already confessed to.

This season is also a personal battle for Ashwin, as he looks to fight back for his place in the limited-overs team. In fact, for anyone who wants to board the flight for the 2019 World Cup, this is an important IPL season. By this time next year, the Indian squad will have already been announced. Not to mention there is also the England tour immediately afterwards in June.

Ashwin needs to show that his off-spin abilities still have a place in India's plans for the World Cup. It is almost like he has to re-invent himself and simultaneously add a new trait to his bowling (there is talk of leg-spin variation), lest he falls further behind younger spinners in the Indian pecking order. As captain, and one of their leading players, it will thus fall onto Ashwin to pick and drag Kings XI Punjab across the finish line.

Just where that line might be — champions, top-two, top-half or anything but last-place — can only be a guess at this moment.

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