IPL auction is over. Most of the team owners have changed the complete profile of the team with buying new players this time and shedding the previous ones. Though the owners are hopeful that their new players will help them to better the team’s performance, the actual worth of the players can only be measured when the annual IPL tournament starts. The deals made in the auction room in Bangalore may be good or bad (Read: Five Best and Worst Deals in the IPL Auction 2011), but one or two bad or good deals may not affect the overall performance of a team. It is the over all team combination that matters.
So, which IPL team looks better than the other? Here is a brief team wise analysis. The analysis is made in three parts; this is part one and the second and third parts will be published later.
CHENNAI SUPER KINGS: This team seemed to have a definite and the most simple strategy in the player auction. The strategy was to ‘retain the winning combination’. CSK is undoubtedly the most successful team in the IPL so far with entering semifinals in all IPL seasons, two Final appearance and winning the title once. The team management didn’t want to dismantle the team and tried to maintain the same team. They used the player retention clause to retain four players in MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, M Vijay and Albie Morkel. They managed to buy the other players (who have donned the CSK jersey in previous seasons) like Ashwin, Bollinger, Hussey and Randiv in the auction. They must be happy to get Dwayne Bravo cheaply. Wridhiman Saha is a new player in the CSK and will replace Parthiv Patel. With Nuwan Kulasekara, Joginder Sharma, Sudeep Tyagi the bowling department has enough back up in case the main attack fails. The batting is equally strong but can some one effectively replace Hayden and give a solid start to the CSK innings?
KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS: The team had made up its mind before entering the auction room. They started the auction by picking up two players- Gambhir and Yusuf Pathan for Rs 20.70 crore- almost half of the purse available to them. Intention was clear: Faith on Indian big hitters. It didn’t bid for any of its old players (strangely including Sourav Ganguly) though picked up Manoj Tiwari as only Bengal face in the team. Not buying Ashoke Dinda was baffling while they went for Balaji which is not so good deal. Sakib Al Hasan may prove really helpful for KKR. Some other good buys that will help are: Kallis, Ryan Ten Doeschate, Eoin Morgan. Brett Lee deal may backfire if he gets injured before IPL starts. Jaydev Unadkat, Brad Haddin and James Pattinson are also OK type deals. Overall the team looks good, bowling department may cause worry as the team seems to be batting heavy. The fan base may get dented considering its non-signing Sourav (Read: Strong Reactionsfrom fans after IPL snub to Ganguly)
TEAM KOCHI: The team is yet to get a formal name. The team in many way doesn’t look good. With all respect to Laxman, I must say that the Laxman deal may not help the team. Sreesanth surely brings flavour and fans for the team yet performance wise the team can’t expect much from him. A very bad deal in Ravindra Jadeja makes it case worse. Well, all is not lost for Kochi. Jayawardene, McCullum, Owais Shah(may have availability issue) and Brad Hodge constitute the batting. The team without prominent Indian batsmen is not a good sign. They will have to get some really good uncapped batsmen. The bowling is comparatively better. RP Singh, Vinay Kumar, Sreesanth and great Murali will make a lethal bowling attack. Ramesh Powar is also available as back up. Parthiv Patel must be feeling happy as he ll get a prominent role in the team.
The only question the teams are concerned after the auction is “Did we get the right combination for our team? Can this team good enough to compete in IPL?” After the first part of the analysis of the teams, here is the second part of the series analysing three more teams today.
PUNE WARRIORS: There were many apprehension before the IPL auction that the new teams may not use the auction into their advantage due to the lack of experience in player auction of the new teams. While Kochi proved those apprehension to be right with some tactical blunders, Pune proved it wrong. They have got Graeme Smith very cheaply and will provide opening option. While the other end can go slam bang, Smith on the other hand hold the wicket and score as per the requirement of the team. Yuvraj and Robin Uthappa, Tim Paine strengthen the batting lineup. They had a good buy in Angelo Mathews who is currently in good form and one of the best all rounders in the world today. The bowling department is empowered by Asish Nehera, Wayne Parnell and Murali Kartik in the middle who can stop the scoring guns of the opponent team. Relying too much on foreign players may turn problematic for the team as they have very few Indians bought in the auction. But they have still Rs 4.2 crore left with them and must buy some good uncapped players. (Reports suggest that Pune is very much interested in Manish Pandey)
RAJASTHAN ROYALS: The champions of the inaugural IPL, Rajasthan Royals’ performance has slumped consistently in last 2 seasons. While the team has always performed better than the total potential of the players in the team, it will be interesting to see if the inspirational captain in Shane Warne can turn things this time around again. Rajasthan couldn’t buy many players in the auction thanks to a reduced purse for retaining Warne and Watson and for the guarantee amount paid to the court. Still, they have some match winners in their side, Warne and Watson being the prominent one. Prolific batsmen like Collingwood, Ross Taylor bolsters the batting department. Rahul Dravid will provide the back up with all his international experience. The bowling will mostly depend on Warne. Shaun Tait and Pankaj Singh are the only pacers in the team currently. Johan Botha is another spin option available with the team
DECCAN CHARGER: The most feared team after the first IPL auction looks toothless after this year auction. That may be part of their strategy as a star packed team didn’t give them much success. Surprising was Chargers not bidding for its IPL2 winning captain Adam Gilchrist. Spending much money on Daniel Christian and Shikhar Dhawan also some of the few blunders they did in the auction room. Cameroon White, Sangakkara, Pietersen(may face availability issues in IPL4) and JP Duminy makes a good batting line up. The bowling department looks better than their average batting line up with Dale Steyn leading the pack of energetic bowlers. Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra are the other bowlers. It was strange to see the team buying two spinners in the team.
MUMBAI INDIANS: Doesn’t matter if you are an Ambani or some one else, you are bound to make a few mistakes in the process of bidding and counter bidding. With a half purse available to them for retaining Sachin, Harbhajan, Pollard and Malinga, MI was expected to make judicious bidding. While leaving Zaheer Khan and paying a Rs 9.2 crore for Rohit Sharma will pinch them if the bowling line up or Rohit Sharma fails in the IPL. Considering Rohit’s possible position and role in MI’s batting line up, if he performs then Rs 9 crore will not look that big. The bowling has become a bit weaker and the batsmen will be relieved as the fiery Zak-Malinga combo will not bowl in the IPL anymore. Munaf patel replaces Zak in the MI side and surely can’t feel the void created. MI has also got some rookie foreign bowlers in James Franklin and Clint McKay. Moises Henriques provides a good all round option but again may not be able to completely replace Dwayne Bravo. Every eyes will be on Andrew Symonds whom MI bought for Rs 3.9 crore both for his performance(hasn’t played much cricket recently) and relationship with Harbhajan. Davy Jacobs is a good buy for Rs 87 lakh. The batting will mostly depend on Sachin. The team seems to be heavily depending on Sachin; certainly not a welcome sign. They very seriously need a few good, hard hitting uncapped players now.
DELHI DAREDEVILS: It may be a strategy that Delhi followed to shed big names and bank on small names and buy them for low price. But strange side of this theory is that the big names for the team were performing. They entered the auction with retaining Sehwag and releasing all other players including Gambhir, Dilshan and De villiers. Leaving Gambhir may help them as Warner(whom DD bought for Rs 3.38 crore) will now get the opening slot along with Sehwag. But trying this new opening pair instead of the tried and tested Gambhir-Sehwag duo may backfire. I seriously believe that DD should have retained Gambhir. Aaron Finch (Rs 1.35 cr), Venugopal rao (Rs 3.16 cr- DD overpaid here), Colin Ingram(Rs 45 lakh) and Naman Ojah (Rs 1.22 cr- WK batsman) are the well known names in the batting lineup. James Hopes (Rs 1.58cr) and Irfan Pathan (Rs 8.55cr) and Roelof van der Merwe (Rs 22.59 lakh) are three all rounders in the side. Irfan deal is another overpriced one for the team. Bowling is extremely weak as its dependent on the likes of Ashoke Dinda, Umesh Yadav and Ajit Agarkar and led by Irfan. delhi will certainly miss Nannes’ service. Few rookie foreign players like Andrew McDonald, Travis Birt and Robert Frylinck in the side too but I have doubts if they can add much value to the team.
KINGS XI PUNJAB: The team wasn’t very much active on the auction floor and that was expected as they too had to pay some guarantee to the court like the Rajasthan Royals. To make up this decrease in the purse they didn’t retain any player and to have a revamped team let Yuvraj go to other team. Gilchrist bought for Rs 4 crore will most probably lead the side and the batting as well. The KXIP management must be hoping the presence of Gilchrist will inspire the other players in the team. They have decent team. On paper, team is well balanced but has to be seen if this combination will work. Shaun Marsh, Dinesh Kartik, David Hussey, Abhishek Nayar, Dimitri Mascarenhars will take care of the batting. All the batsmen has been bought for reasonable price. Praveen Kumar, Stuart Broad, Ryan Harris and Piyush Chawla are the only bowlers in the side till now. As the team has too many foreign players and not many Indian players, they will have to make some good uncapped player buyings or they may face problem to find a right balance for the playing eleven.
ROYAL CHALLENGERS BANGALORE: Delhi’s loss-Bangalore’s gain. Vijay Mallya was quick to pick up the boom boom hitters of Delhi. AB De villiers and Dilshan will certainly boost the RCB batting. Add the confident Virat Kohli (whom RCB retained) to this equation, it makes an explosive batting line up. Few deals like that with Pujara, Saurabh Tiwari, Md Kaif raises quite a few eye brows. Jonathon Vandiar is a good deal but don’t think he will get many chances to play in playing eleven. Rilee Rossouw is another very young player Mallya threw a contract to but the idea behind it is not quite clear. But the RCB bowling combination will raise fear among opponent batsmen. Dirk Nannes, Zaheer Khan, daniel Vettori, Abhimanyu Mithun, Charl langaveldt and Nuwan Pradeep: the main as well as the back up bowling line up is quite strong. Not to forget, Dilshan’s partnership breaking spells adds more teeth to the bowling department.
Which IPL team can win the IPL this season? Which is your favorite team? Are you happy with your favorite IPL team? Let us know in the comments section
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