Suresh Raina has been appointed captain of an Indian Premier League side for the first time. The Rajkot franchise has been named the Gujarat Lions after an online poll. The new IPL side will be led by Suresh Raina.


Gujarat Lions along with Rising Pune Supergiants will play the next two editions of the Indian Super League after the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were banned for two years following the IPL betting scandal.


Ravindra Jadeja, James Faulkner, Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Bravo were the other four players selected by Rajkot in the first ever IPL draft held in November. 


Barring Faulkner, all of Rajkot's players were contracted with CSK up until last year. 


Gujarat Lions and other IPL teams will now get to buy more players from a big auction list in February.


Former Australian batsman Brad Hodge has been named coach of the Gujarat Lions.


Raina, said playing under Dhoni for eight years for Chennai Super Kings had made him a much better cricketer and he was looking forward to the challenge of playing against him for the next two editions.


"Dhoni and I talked about it in Australia (playing for different IPL teams). It will be fun. Imagine, Jadeja celebrating Dhoni's dismissal," Raina said at the launch of the team name and the logo.


The Uttar Pradesh batsman, who made a successful return to the Indian middle-order during the T20 series against Australia, said he was excited about the auction and would work on his strategies with Hodge and the team owner. 


courtesy by indiatoday

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kumar siva

02/02/2016 11:33 AM