Agarwal was retained for 14 crores and his retention was based on his performances for PBKS for 4 years despite that the franchise just after 1 bad season decided to part ways with the Karnataka player.
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Agarwal was outstanding for Punjab in IPL 2020 and 2021, and he was selected captain of the franchise after KL Rahul left last season. However, as Punjab failed to qualify for the playoffs under his guidance, the right-hander from Karnataka could only score 196 runs in 12 innings at an average of 16.33 and a strike rate of 122.50. The franchise had recently revealed that Shikhar Dhawan would lead them in the 2023 edition, thus it was only natural that Agarwal would be released. Agarwal was retained for 14 crores and his retention was based on his performances for PBKS for 4 years despite that the franchise just after 1 bad season decided to part ways with the Karnataka player.
“The thing about Mayank Agarwal? Too much of a nice guy, and this game is not for nice guys. I mean he had a phenomenal couple of seasons at the top of the order with KL Rahul. He actually out-batted KL Rahul at the top position and became the captain and ideally, you would want one more year for a guy to prove himself. And the worst thing that could have happened to him was that he sacrificed his opening position where he was phenomenal, and went down the order. This meant that batting became more difficult and the runs didn’t come, the pressure built up”, former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar said of PBKS’s decision to leave out Agarwal.
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| Year | Innings | Runs | Balls | Outs | Avg | SR | HS | 50 | 100 | 4s | 6s | Dot % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 11 | 120 | 94 | 10 | 12.0 | 127.7 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 5 | 31.9 |
| 2019 | 13 | 332 | 234 | 13 | 25.5 | 141.9 | 58 | 2 | 0 | 26 | 14 | 31.2 |
| 2020 | 11 | 423 | 271 | 11 | 38.5 | 156.1 | 105 | 2 | 1 | 44 | 15 | 29.2 |
| 2021 | 12 | 441 | 314 | 11 | 40.1 | 140.4 | 99 | 4 | 0 | 42 | 18 | 35.7 |
| 2022 | 12 | 196 | 160 | 12 | 16.3 | 122.5 | 52 | 1 | 0 | 23 | 6 | 44.4 |
| Total | 59 | 1,512 | 1,073 | 57 | 26.5 | 140.9 | 105 | 9 | 1 | 144 | 58 | 34.0 |
As is clear from these stats Agarwal had a fantastic three seasons with the franchise it was only last year when he struggled yet the team thought it was better to hand over the captaincy to Dhawan who is ageing and whose overall strike rate in the last 5 seasons is nowhere close to Agarwal’s.
These are Dhawan’s numbers in the last 5 years:
| Total | Innings | Runs | Balls | Outs | Avg | SR | HS | 50 | 100 | 4s | 6s | Dot % |
|---|
| Total | 79 | 2,683 | 2,020 | 69 | 38.9 | 132.8 | 106 | 19 | 2 | 300 | 66 | 34.3 |
Although Dhawan’s average is far better than Agarwal, his strike rate is comparatively low which means Agarwal plays more aggressive cricket than Dhawan. In fact, last season Agarwal struck at 130.6 in the powerplay while Dhawan at 116.9. It would be interesting to see who PBKS targets in the auction because they have released quite a few players.
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