IPL 2019: 3 middle-order players who could be used as openers in this season

#2 Marcus Stoinis

Marcus Stoinis will represent RCB in this year's IPL

Before the IPL 2019 auction, Kings XI Punjab made a bizarre move by trading Marcus Stoinis to Royal Challengers Bangalore in the pursuit of Mandeep Singh. Though Stoinis did not have an exceptional IPL career, he has been in good form in the recent 3-4 months. Since this year’s IPL auction preceded the latest edition of Big Bash League 2018-19, the franchise could have decided to trade him for a middle-order Indian player.

In BBL 2018-19, Stoinis scored 533 runs 13 innings with an impressive average of 53.30 and four half-centuries. With the ball, he claimed 14 wickets from 11 innings with the best figures of 4/21. Though he batted in the middle-order for Melbourne Stars in the initial games, he became an opener during the middle stages of the tournament and played a pivotal role in guiding his team to the final.

Stoinis will miss the first few IPL game, as he will be busy on national duty for Australia. Once he returns, he will most probably be picked in the playing XI and can open the batting for RCB. As an additional note, Stoinis had already opened a handful of IPL games for KXIP.