Since the inception of the Indian Premier League, Kings XI Punjab have been a franchise that has notoriously struggled. A finishing position of sixth this season was the 11th time they have failed to qualify for the knockout stages in the 13 seasons of the IPL, last progressing out of the group stage in 2014 when, having topped the table, they lost in the final to the Kolkata Knight Riders; their only previous top-four finish was in 2008 when they were defeated in the semi-finals. Here, we will use our cricket analysis to analyse KXIP’s season as a whole, and see how they fared across the campaign.
Season Overview
As a result, their final standing of sixth here – identical to how they fared in the 2019 edition – is not one out of sequence with their overall history as a franchise. Furthermore, their record of six victories and eight defeats is one that matched how they performed in both the 2018 and 2019 seasons.
Their first game of the tournament this year was a dramatic match with the Delhi Capitals that ended in a tie before they eventually lost out in a Super Over, although they bounced back with a comprehensive 97-run success over Royal Challengers Bangalore, led by an unbeaten 132 from captain KL Rahul – the highest total by an Indian batsman and a captain in IPL history. They then failed to defend 223 against the Rajasthan Royals, the start of a five-game losing streak that ended with a second success against RCB which triggered a winning run of the same amount. They then, incredibly, triumphed over the eventual champions Mumbai Indians after not one but two Super Overs in the second match of that sequence, before then losing their final two games.
Batting Performance
The shining star for KXIP with the bat was captain Rahul, the 28-year-old topping the run-scoring charts for the tournament as a whole with his total of 670, compiled of one century and five 50s at an average of 55.83 and a strike-rate of 129.34. 
The closest challenger to Rahul was Mayank Agarwal with 424 runs – albeit at a higher strike-rate than his captain at 156.45 – whilst Nicholas Pooran was third with 353 at a sublime strike-rate of 169.71. Fellow West Indian superstar Chris Gayle also posted a respectable total of 288 from just seven matches, scoring at a rate of 137.14, featuring his 99 off just 63 balls against the Royals.
Pooran was one of the standouts in an otherwise disappointing year, the Trinidadian cementing his status as one of the best and most dynamic young white-ball batsmen in the world and also securing a move to Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash too. Pooran’s cumulative Batting Index score – a total measure of how a player performed against the average level of players in a match – of 608.91 was the highest of any of his teammates.
The collective struggles of KXIP’s batting unit can be seen by the fact that only three batsmen collected a positive cumulative Index score throughout the tournament. Perhaps most disappointing of all was that Australian overseas all-rounder Glenn Maxwell was the worst performing batsman with a score of -647: he only contributed one positive score throughout the tournament from his 11 innings.
Looking at the team’s performance as a whole – as can be seen in the graphs below – KXIP were actually the second best-performing batting team in the powerplay, averaging 48.36 runs per wicket lost, behind only Sunrisers Hyderabad (53.6) in this regard.
Moving onto their capabilities later on in matches, they sat seventh in the averages in the middle overs with a score of 33.73 and third for averages in the ‘death’ overs with 23.07.
Looking at run rates, they were the third quickest-scoring team in both the powerplay, at an average of 8.06 runs per over, behind SRH (8.375) and MI (8.281), and in the middle overs with a score of 8.032, this time behind MI (8.154) and Delhi (8.065). However, their death hitting did not match up to their scoring rate earlier on in games as they sat fifth at a rate of 10.2 runs per over.
Bowling Performance
Just as the batting was led by an experienced Indian campaigner, so too was the bowling department. Their main wicket-taking threat was Mohammad Shami, the 30-year-old bagging 20 scalps in his 14 games at an average of just 23.
There were only two other players who managed to break the double-figure wicket mark, Ravi Bishnoi with 12 and Murugan Ashwin with 10, albeit both had a much lower economy rate – 7.37 and 7.46 respectively – than Shami’s 8.57. Also, whilst Maxwell did not trouble batsmen too often, taking just three wickets, he was fairly economical with a rate of 8.04, whilst Chris Jordan was at the other end of this spectrum with nine wickets at a higher rate of 9.65.
Shami’s wicket-taking threat was backed up by his cumulative Bowling Index score of 660.9, way ahead of Ashwin in second with 534.
A performer who was perhaps underused was Sheldon Cottrell.The left-arm quick had match figures of 2/24, 2/17, 1/52, 1/20, 0/30 and 0/33 and collected a cumulative Bowling Index score of 230.96 before being dropped from the side for the remaining eight matches. Maxwell performed better with the ball in his hand than bat by way of an Index score of 98.1.
Looking at the team’s bowling abilities, when it came to their bowling average in the powerplay they were only the fifth-most effective with an average of 34.9 runs conceded per wicket taken.
However, they were the worst side in the middle overs with an average of 42.22 the only side to surpass 40 runs in this metric – although were actually the third best at the death with an average of 18.22, behind only DC (17.88) and MI (18.14).
When focusing on the economy rates of the teams, KXIP were again poor in the powerplay with the second-highest economy rate (8.31), narrowly behind the Royals’ 8.345.
Their middle-order bowling was better, with an economy rate of 7.706 that put them as the fifth-most effective of all teams, although their death over economy of 11.172 was back at the wrong end as they sat as the second worst
Conclusion
The systemic failings of Kings XI over the majority of the history of the IPL show that this most recent effort wasn’t just a one-off. They have consistently been unable to be a major player, with inconsistency being a major part of their troubles. This year they beat all four teams who eventually qualified for the knockout stages – including doing the double over RCB – but lost to the three fellow teams that were unsuccessful.
Having used 22 players over the course of this season they desperately kept trying to stumble across a winning team with little joy. They need to be able to: consistently produce a high standard that is fitting for the quality of players they possess; find a settled formula and line-up that works for them. Until they can do so, they will likely keep struggling.