Former Indian captain and Head Coach, Anil Kumble has recently joined the Indian Premier League (IPL) team Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) as the Director of Cricket Operations. He has revealed his main goal for KXIP in IPL 2020.
Like many IPL sides, KXIP has also decided to change their coaching staff for the IPL 2020. Since IPL 2017, KXIP has changed the Head Coach for every season. But they still haven’t earned the success.
Besides the Director of Cricket Operations, Anil Kumble will also play the Head Coach role for KXIP for the next IPL season (2020). He is ready to take up this challenge.
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KXIP has never won an IPL trophy. Their best IPL season was in 2014 where they finished as the runners-up. The inaugural IPL season (2008) was the only other time when KXIP finished in top four (semifinalists).
Talking about the goal of his next IPL season as KXIP Head Coach, Anil Kumble pointed out to win the IPL trophy. He feels that KXIP started well in recent times but a few defeats shifted the momentum.
Kumble said in a recent interview to KXIP, “The team has not won an IPL title as of yet, so that is our main goal. In terms of the biggest challenge, we have seen in the recent past that the start has been good for Kings XI but after a couple of losses, the momentum shifts. We have been close to qualifying but we miss out by small margins. So it’s important to keep the momentum over 14 games and have a sustained performance for the team to make it to the last four, where it’s anybody’s game.”
Anil Kumble spoke about what is important to achieve the success
Anil Kumble believes that it is important to prepare the players to get ready for every challenge. As IPL is a very challenging tournament, Kumble wants to give full attention to the players.
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“It is important to put together a proper structure and my role would be to get players ready for the challenge and make sure they are up for it. The support staff can help in terms of strategies, ensure players achieve success and that they are in the right space so to go there and play freely. That’s important in a T20 competition because the IPL is such a format that every game is a close finish and that all the eight teams are closely matched. There’s not much difference between the sides, so it’s just a matter of how well you can perform on a particular day. It is always a roller-coaster ride, it’s not that easy, we have seen that over 12 years of the IPL. To achieve success, it is important to keep calm and back the players, who win you the competition at the end.”
The former Indian Head Coach also feels that the strategy-making part will start later of the tournament.
Kumble added, “The strategy-making will start later, as we approach the start of the season, because the players have international and domestic commitments right now and we need the whole group together for a definitive plan.”
There are some names we are discussing – KXIP coach spoke about IPL players’ auction
Anil Kumble was also asked whether he had targeted to bring any kind of player during the forthcoming IPL players’ auction. Though he has claimed that they are discussing some players’ name, he hasn’t revealed any name. He is giving importance to the balance of the team.
Kumble said, “We will look at the balance of the team first, and identify areas where we need more reinforcements. There are some names we are discussing but a proper team plan will be put in place later.”
Kolkata will host the upcoming IPL players’ auction on 19th December 2019. The pre-auction trading window will end on 15th November 2019.