Kings XI Punjab IPL 2016: Predicted XI

7. Rishi Dhawan

Rishi Dhawan’s capabilities as an all-rounder can be very handy for any IPL side

Having recently earned his Team India call-up on the back of an excellent Ranji Trophy season, Rishi Dhawan has also been one of the mainstays for the Kings XI over the past two years.

Although his IPL career, only three years old, is still in its nascent stages, as is evident from his bowling record of 16 wickets from 24 games, his exploits in domestic cricket, especially in first-class cricket, make him a really canny customer.

Dhawan has a mind-boggling 220 wickets from just 51 first-class games at an average of 25.79 to go along with 74 List A wickets from 58 games. Overall, he has accounted for 47 wickets in his T20 career from 65 matches.

Apart from his exploits with the ball, Dhawan also has 139 runs from the 24 IPL games that he has played at an average of almost 20. The runs and averages increase exponentially as one moves from IPL to first-class and List A cricket.

The Himachal Pradesh cricketer has 2165 runs at 40.84 in first-class cricket and 1132 runs at 37.73 in List A cricket. Hence, when the need arises, Dhawan can also be very handy with the bat.