I seem to have gotten the Bangalore analysis completely wrong. I’m told the following things, by various people
- Gaurav Dhiman seems to have lost it since the last last youth world cup, when he opened the bowling with R P Singh
- A reliable source tells me that Praveen Kumar has been signed for Bangalore. An excellent acquisition.
- Swapnil Asnodkar is likely to make the squad – if not for anything else, but to give Goa some kind of representation
- K B Pawan’s strike rate this season at the Ranji Trophy was lower than Yere Goud’s. Which is saying something
- Vinay Kumar’s averages this season were significantly superior to Aiyappa’s.
- Ryan Ninan is this promising offspinning all rounder. And he’s u-22
Anyways, make appropriate changes to that Bangalore list. This post is about Delhi. So let’s get started.
There are these 3-4 local guys who are Delhi’s to lose. They have an excellent domestic record, and have also shown that they have the skills that are appreciated for Twenty20. Another thing is that Delhi has signed up too many foreigners, so the bench is going to be crowded. Unless they drop some foreigners altogether, there might be some kind of bench problems. So here’s my starting eleven for Delhi
1. Virender Sehwag
2. Gautam Gambhir
3. A B de Villiers
4. Virat Kohli
5. Manoj Tiwary
6. Rajat Bhatia
7. Dinesh Karthik
8. Daniel Vettori
9. Mohammad Asif
10. Glenn McGrath
11. Pradeep Sangwan
Virat Kohli is the captain of the India U-19 team, and is generally highly rated. By scoring a big hundred against Karnataka in a rain-curtailed affair, he showed that he has the temperament to build an innings (note that Delhi was the only team to bat well against Karnataka, whose bowlers did generally pretty well). And yesterday, playing against West Indies U-19, he scored a quickfire 100 to set up India’s win.
Rajat Bhatia was touted as Robin Singh’s probable successor back in 2000. Though he didn’t quite live up to that promise, he has emerged as one of the best all-rounders in domestic cricket today. There is still a chance that Delhi might prefer Shoaib Malik to him, and maybe replace McGrath by Sudeep Tyagi, in which case I get the feeling he might go play for Chennai, since he’s already represented TN in the Ranji.
Sangwan is a good left arm quick who had an excellent Ranji season, and who destroyed South Africa u-19 some 3 days back. Again, Delhi’s to lose.
Delhi easily completes the local quota from the playing XI itself. Given their line-up it’s not hard to see why they could let Praveen Kumar go (unconfirmed but sources are good)? to Bangalore. They have 3 U-22’s already (Kohli, Sangwan, Tiwary) so need only one more. So here is the bench.
12. Shikhar Dhawan
13. Sudeep Tyagi
14. Farveez Maharoof
15. Shoaib Malik
16. TM Dilshan
Again, you see that only 2 indian guys are on the bench, which might be a cause for concern. I won’t be surprised if they send Maharoof home, and pick him only when Malik/Vettori is not available. He could be replaced by Amit Mishra, the Haryana leg-spinner. Note that Vettori won’t be available for the last bit, so they’ll need another spinner. Alternately, they could keep this 16, and bring in Mishra only when Vettori leaves.
Update
I checked and found that Manoj Tiwary isn’t under 22, so doesn’t qualify for the quota. This would mean that Delhi will have to get in another youngster. I think they’ll drop Shikhar Dhawan in favour of Tanmay Srivastava