Bangar appointed head of cricket development at Punjab Kings

Former India allrounder Sanjay Bangar has joined Punjab Kings as the head of cricket development. This will be his second stint with the franchise, having worked earlier as head coach between 2014 and 2016.

"It's my privilege to be with the Punjab Kings again," Bangar said in a media release. "We have a good core of players as evidenced by the fact that we have the lowest number of player releases this year. The challenge is to give the squad the best support possible during and after the season to make the team stronger and deliver success."

Bangar will work in tandem with head coach Trevor Bayliss. Among his first challenges on joining will be to pick reinforcements at the IPL auction, to be held in Dubai on December 19.

Before joining Kings, Bangar was with Royal Challengers Bangalore. Having joined as their batting consultant in 2021, he took over as head coach for the next two seasons and worked alongside director of cricket Mike Hesson. Royal Challengers made the playoffs in two out of the three seasons Bangar was with them.

Bangar has over a decade of experience in coaching, including two stints with the Indian team as their batting coach. Bangar's first stint with Kings in 2014 was the team's best-ever season, when they finished runners-up to Kolkata Knight Riders. However, they finished at the bottom in the next two years.

Last month, Kings released five players, Bhanuka Rajapaksa and Shahrukh Khan being the only big names. Ahead of the auction, they have eight slots available, and a purse of INR 29.1 crore to fill them.