Pune IPL team replaces Dhoni with Steve Smith as skipper, Bengaluru releases Mitchell Starc

MUMBAI: Ahead of Monday’s player auction, team owners of different Indian Premier League ( IPL) franchises are busy taking last minute calls. In the latest development, RPS Goenka Group-owned Pune team has replaced its captain MS Dhoni with Australian Steve Smith.

While Smith will lead the Rising Pune Supergiants for 2017 season of the league, Dhoni will remain part of the team, team owner Sanjiv Goenka told ET.

“We have replaced Dhoni as captain but he will very much remain part of the team,” Goenka said. “I will meet with Smith in the evening to discuss our strategy for the player auctions.”

In its debut season, RPS had ended at seventh place after winning only five of the 14 playoffs. While Dhoni’s is one of the few captains who have led their teams the pole position in IPL twice since start of the league, he could not deliver the same with RPS.

Dhoni, who recently also stepped down from captaincy of Indian cricket team’s limited over formats, could score only 284 runs from 12 innings in last year’s IPL.

In other development, Bengaluru-franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore has released Australian fast bowler Mitchell Starc on the eve of the auctions.

It is learnt that Starc will not be part of the IPL player auction on Monday. Meanwhile, by releasing Starc, RCB will now have two slots for overseas players and an additional Rs 5 crore in purse. Starc, could not play in the last year’s edition because of a fracture. In 2015 and 2015 editions, he had taken 14 20 wickets, respectively for RCB.