What Can Be The Likely Playing XIs Of Franchises In Their 1st Match Of IPL 2022?

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The two-day IPL 2022 Mega Auction finished on 13th February with all 10 teams picking their squads for the upcoming season. It was an interesting two-day affair where one could see how the teams are trying to construct the squad for the next three years. 

One of the interesting things that must be noted and kept in mind in this season is that due to the arrival of the two new teams, the quality experienced players have spread out. This means that teams are likely to play a few unknown entities in the playing XIs. Will this impact the overall quality of the league? Time will tell. 

Another interesting thing that was seen during the auction was teams focused on building the playing XI right from day 1. The teams chose their core 6-7 players and then shifted to choosing backups and floaters. 

A total of 235 players were bought/picked by 10 teams. Four teams namely Chennai Super Kings, Punjab Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, and Mumbai Indians bought all the allotted 25 players in the auction while Delhi Capitals and Rajasthan Royals finished with 24 players. 

Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Titans bought 22 players, Sunrisers Hyderabad 23, and Lucknow Super Giants got 21 players for this season of the IPL. 

Let's take a look at what can be the playing XIs for the franchises in their respective first match of the IPL 2022: 

Chennai Super Kings - Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway, Moeen Ali, Ambati Rayudu, Shivam Dube, MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar, R Hangargekar, Dwayne Bravo, and Adam Milne 

Royal Challengers Bangalore - Faf du Plessis, Anuj Rawat, Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Mahipal Lomror, Dinesh Karthik, Wanindu Hasaranga, Shahbaz Ahmed, Harshal Patel, Mohammad Siraj, Josh Hazlewood

Mumbai Indians - Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Verma/Sanjay Yadav, Tim David, Kieron Pollard, Fabian Allen, Jaydev Unadkat, Murugan Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Tymal Mills/ Daniel Sams

Delhi Capitals - Prithvi Shaw, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Rovman Powell, Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Lalit Yadav/Kuldeep Yadav, Anrich Nortje, Kamlesh Nagarkoti/Khaleel Ahmed 

Lucknow Super Giants - KL Rahul, Quinton de Kock, Manish Pandey, Deepak Hooda, Marcus Stoinis, Jason Holder, Krunal Pandya, K Gowtham, Avesh Khan, Mark Wood, Ravi Bishnoi

Punjab Kings - Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal, Jonny Bairstow, Liam Livingstone, Rishi Dhawan/Raj Bawa, Shahrukh Khan, Odean Smith, Kagiso Rabada, Harpreet Brar, Arshdeep Singh, Rahul Chahar

Kolkata Knight Riders - Ajinkya Rahane, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Sam Billings, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Shivam Mavi/Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy

Sunrisers Hyderabad - Aiden Markram, Rahul Tripathi, Kane Williamson, Nicholas Pooran, Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad, Washington Sundar, Romario Shepherd, Shreyas Gopal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik

Rajasthan Royals - Jos Buttler, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal, Sanju Samson, Shimron Hetmyer, Riyan Parag, James Neesham, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Prasidh Krishna, Trent Boult

Gujarat Titans - Jason Roy, Wriddhiman Saha, Shubman Gill, Vijay Shankar, Hardik Pandya, Dominic Drakes, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, R Sai Kishore, Lockie Ferguson, Mohammad Shami