New Delhi, Oct 29: In a second transfer deal under the transfer window of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Kings XI Punjab have traded Australia all-rounder Marcus Stoinis for Mandeep Singh from Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
Stoinis, who was retained by KXIP last season using the Right to Match (RTM) card, had an ordinary outing in 2018 season which could have prompted the management to let him go and rope in Mandeep.
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Stoinis was sold to the RCB at the IPL auctions for a whopping sum of Rs 6.20 crore but KXIP used their RTM to retain the all-rounder. While RCB had bought Mandeep for a sum of Rs 1.40 crore by outbidding Punjab.
From being termed as tournament favourites to finishing second last in the points table, KXIP had a forgettable season in 2018. They started their campaign under newly-appointed captain Ravichandran Ashwin with a bang but lost steam mid-way despite KL Rahul's brilliance with the bat.
Punjab's middle-order emerged as a major concern for them as they failed to capitalise upon the good start provided by openers Chris Gayle and Rahul. Buying Mandeep back would be another reason for them to strengthen their middle order. However, Mandeep too didn't have a decent outing for the RCB last season as he scored just 252 runs from 14 games he played for the Bengaluru franchise.
Earlier, RCB had sold South Africa wicketkeeper-batsman Quinton de Kock to Mumbai Indians in the first transfer of the cash-rich league.
Royal Challengers had bought De Kock for Rs 2.8 crore in the IPL 2018 auction held in Bengaluru in January, this year. Mumbai Indians purchased the services of the 25-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman from South Africa at the same price.