IPL 2023 Retention: Punjab Kings part ways with former captain Mayank Agarwal after mediocre 2022

Punjab Kings (PBKS) on Tuesday released their former captain Mayank Agarwal ahead of the auction for IPL 2023. Agarwal's association with the Punjab Kings ended following his poor batting performance in the IPL 2022. Punjab Kings looked like a shadow of themselves under Mayank's captaincy, far from impressive, and Mayank had a terrible campaign on a personal level. Despite possessing a strong team, the Punjab Kings finished sixth in IPL 2022 under Mayank's captaincy.

West Indies allrounder Odean Smith, Prerak Mankad, Writtick Chatterjee and Ishan Pore, Vaibhav Arora, Benny Howell and Sandeep Sharma have also been released along with Mayank. The likes of Jonny Bairstow, Shahrukh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Kagiso Rabada and Liam Livingstone have been retained. The exit of Smith and Agarwal means 18 crores more for PBKS's purse.

Shikhar Dhawan has recently



replaced Mayank as PBKS captain for the upcoming IPL season. The franchise had retained Mayank ahead of the IPL 2022 auction for Rs 12 crore but Agarwal failed both as a captain and a batter. He hasn't been in great form in domestic cricket, either, having struggled at the top of the order for Karnataka in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy.

Punjab had assembled a formidable line-up in the last edition of the tournament, but failed to make an impact with their all-out approach, which did not go their way. To make things worse, their most consistent performer - Mayank Agarwal - hit a terrible patch of form and failed to recover. Mayank scored just 196 runs, way below his usual exploits, which saw him getting dropped in the batting line-up in the latter half of the season. Mayank was handed the captaincy after the departure of KL Rahul to Lucknow Super Giants.