5 international stars who will be playing in their maiden Indian Premier League

#4 Chris Woakes (England)

Woakes celebrating a dismissal

Two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) badly needed an all-rounder to replace Andre Russell. Thus they decided to try and rope in Chris Woakes and eventually landed him for 4 crores 20 lacs.

The 27-year-old has not played in the IPL before but would love to bowl on the re-laid Eden Gardens surface which nowadays is providing a lot of bounce and swing. Woakes is mainly a seamer who bats brilliantly at times. He is quite a handy cricketer to have in the lower order as he can hit the long ball at will.

Time and again his knocks lower down the order has helped England win games. He is quite a value addition pick for the Knights.

He has thus far scored 656 runs from 87 T20 matches with an average of 26.24. He also has a strike rate of a whopping 138.39. Woakes has 86 wickets from those games and averages 26.10 with the ball.