Pune Warriors India, 2011 IPL Squad

Franchise
During the franchisee auction in 2010 for the two new Indian Premier League (IPL) teams, Subrata Roy of Sahara Group purchased the Pune IPL team. Pune and Kochi joined the current teams of eight for the IPL fourth season to be held on 2011. On March 22, 2010 Sahara group bought Pune IPL team for 1,702 crore. The bid for the Pune IPL team was lost by the The Videocon Group.

Player Auction
At the IPL Player Auction 2011, the Warriors made two very expensive signings - Yuvraj Singh at USD 1.8 million and Robin Uthappa at USD 2.1 million. Some of their other buys at the auction were Sourav Ganguly, Graeme Smith (USD 500,000), Ashish Nehra (USD 850,000), Angelo Matthews (USD 950,000), Wayne Parnell (USD 160,000) and Jesse Ryder (USD 150,000). Murali Kartik, Callum Ferguson and Nathan McCullum were also taken up at the auction. A number of uncapped Indian players who had played for various franchises before were roped in including Mithun Manhas, Manish Pandey, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Dinesh Jadhav and Harpreet Singh who gave the squad a youthful edge. Yuvraj Singh was the captain of the Warriors in March 2011 while the coaching responsibility lies with the legendary Australian opening batsman Geoff Marsh.

Yuvraj Singh to Lead PuneWarriors India
Though he couldn’t achieve much being with Kings XI Punjab but now he has wide scope to prove himself and show his leadership skills to others. The cricket IPL started from 8 of April 2011. Pune Warriors played their first match on Sunday 9th April with Kings XI Punjab. The match was heart throbbing as we see Yuvraj Singh playing against Kings XI Punjab, which once he was a captain. It’s the Yuvraj Singh who holds the Key to Warriors “Fortunes”.

Pune Warriors India Performance
The warriors gave a successful start in IPL 2011 by defeating Kings XI, Punjab and Kochi Tuskers Kerala at home. On 3 May 2011, the Pune Warriors selected Sourav Ganguly to play as a replacement for the injured Ashish Nehra. Captain Yuvraj Singh played brilliant as always and Shrikant Wagh was declared as the ‘Man of the Match’ for his magical spell of 4 overs yielding 16 runs and picking 3 vital wickets. The player all looked in good nick and performed very well.