After Mayank Agarwal was released by Punjab Kings, former India player Sanjay Manjrekar expressed his opinions.
Mayank Agarwal of the Punjab Kings was a notable name among the older players released by the Indian Premier League (IPL) clubs prior to the 2023 auction. In IPL 2022, he served as the team's captain. Punjab under his management placed sixth in the 10-team league. Mayank's own performance was also not fantastic, scoring 196 runs at an average of 16.33 in 13 games. He was one of the nine athletes that Punjab freed on Tuesday. After the release of the nine players, Punjab is now left with INR 32.2 crore in their bank account. Mayank was retained for INR 14 crore prior to the IPL 2022.
Former India player Sanjay Manjrekar shared his views after Agarwal was released by Punjab Kings. "See, it's a very interesting case with Mayank Agarwal, for one, the price tag doesn't help when you've had a bad season. There's a temptation of releasing that player and using that money to may be rebuy or you know, look at another option. But the thing about Mayank Agarwal. Too much of a nice guy, and this game is not for nice guys," Sanjay Manjrekar said on Star Sports.
"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, 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. Which meant that batting became more difficult and the runs didn't come, the pressure built up. So, I feel sorry for him, but he'll be a very very attractive proposition for teams looking for an opener, because this is the guy who'll get you big scores and at a strike rate of 150, 160 and good against both spin and pace."
Shikhar Dhawan, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh, Harpreet Brar, Raj Angad Bawa, Prabhsimran Singh, Rishi Dhawan, Jitesh Sharma, Baltej Singh Dhanda, Atharva Taide, Liam Livingstone, Kagiso Rabada, Jonny Bairstow, Nathan Ellis, and Bhanuka Rajapakse were among the players retained by the Punjab.
Mayank Agarwal, Odean Smith, Vaibhav Arora, Benny Howell, Ishan Porel, Ansh Patel, Prerak Mankad, Sandeep Sharma, and Writtick Chatterjee were all released from their contracts.