Rising Pune Supergiant is a franchisee that had been brought in, after the suspension of Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings for a period of two years due to the spot fixing controversy. A draft of players was organised  and it resulted in  Pune getting the likes of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravichandran Ashwin, Steve Smith and Faf du Plessis. Ms Dhoni had been the captain in 2016 but quite unexpectedly, he could not repeat what he had been doing for Chennai Super Kings.

Inspite of having such star-studded line-up, Pune failed miserably and could manage only five wins in the season finishing seventh on the points table. In the 2017 edition, Pune made quite a few significant changes, which have so far proved to be correct. Also, the form of some players and the emergence of youngsters like Rahul Tripathi proved to be the turning point of this season.

Some of the changes made are as follows-

1.First of all was the most controversial one-Replacement of MS  Dhoni by Steve Smith as the new captain

2.Spending a whopping Rs 14.5 crore on Ben Stokes

But the decision paid rich dividends as Stokes has justified his price

3.Bringing in Imran Tahir as replacement for Mitchell Marsh

4. Last but not least, Changing the name from Supergiants to Supergiant

We loved having you in the team @benstokes38
🔑 in us qualifying for the Play Offs, you will definitely be missed!💜#RangWahiJungNayi #Stokes pic.twitter.com/IvEJhoZV75

— RisingPuneSupergiant (@RPSupergiants) May 16, 2017

Source: NYOOOZ DESK - IPL