Kings XI satisfied with first day's purchase

After trading eight players on the first day of the IPL players' auction in Bangalore on Saturday, Kings XI Punjab said the franchise was delighted to have bought a mix of cricketers apart from managing to hold on to some of its former recruits for the fourth edition of the event.

Even though Kings XI lost all their key players including the Lankan duo of Kumar Sangakkara (bought by Deccan Chargers for $650,000) and Jayawardene ($1.5 million for Kochi) and Yuvraj to Pune, they had something to cheer when they successfully bid for former Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist for $900,000.

Apart from Gilchrist, the Punjab side bought David Hussey ($1.4 million), Dinesh Karthik ($900,000), Piyush Chawla ($900,000), Abhishek Nayar ($800,000), Praveen Kumar ($800,000), Stuart Broad ($400,000) and Ryan Harris ($325,000).

"Today has been a great day for us at the IPL Auctions and we are extremely delighted to have an ace cricketer and able captain like Adam Gilchrist, wicket-keeper batsman Dinesh Karthik and cricketing talent like David Hussey, Abhishek Nayar, Praveen Kumar, Stuart Broad and Ryan Harris to the squad," Kings XI said in a statement.

"We are also thrilled on being able to retain Shaun Marsh and Piyush Chawla for the team. Our focus is on performance for the upcoming season and given the players we have on our rolls, we expect our team to go the distance. Going forward on Sunday, we will look at further strengthening our squad," it added.