IPL Revisited

Before I could re-assess and make new starting line-ups for the eight teams following the second IPL auction and recruitment of locals and youngsters, cricinfo has done it’s own version. However, it seems like Bib had an extremely tough deadline to come up with this and most line-ups he has drawn up seem fairly random. Let me try compare what he has made to what I had “predicted” three weeks back, and then come up with a new prediction.

Before I proceed, it gives me a great kick that I had managed to predict that Uday Kaul would get picked up by Mohali. Of course, not too many of my other predictions went good, but I’m still kicked that I managed to correctly predict for such an obscure chap. On the other hand, I’m extremely disappointed that no one got my pun over Taruwar Kohli’s name. (here is the Mohali post where I predicted both these). One more reason I went wrong is that I assumed U-19 players would just join their home franchises, and hadn’t anticipated the draft.

Bangalore

Here is what I had predicted. Bib says that Arun Kumar will open with Bharat Chipli. Somehow I don’t see the former getting a game, and think he’s been taken in only to give Goa it’s notional quota. Apart from this, Bib gets it mostly right (though I’m not sure he took into account the limit on foreigners). Here’s my new take

1. Praveen Kumar 2. Bharat Chipli/Wasim Jaffer 3. Jacques Kallis 4. Rahul Dravid 5. Virat Kohli 6. Misbah-ul-haq 7. Mark Boucher 8. R Vinay Kumar 9. Anil Kumble 10. Zaheer Khan 11. Nathan Bracken

There is a good chance Zaheer might not be fit (though I think he’ll choose the 4-overs per game IPL to make his comeback). He might be replaced by one of the three left arm spinners who are in the squad, mostly Joshi. Also, note that right now it’s a squad of 23, which needs to be pruned to 16 by next week (so i’ll post again next week). I expect only one of the three left arm spinners to make the 16.

Actually looking at this line-up, it resembles a Kiwi lineup, with four Dibbly Dobblys (Praveen, Kallis, Vinay, Bracken). Maybe Bracken could be replaced by Steyn, or Vinay Kumar by an extra batsman.

Madras

Here‘s the link to my take. One major “problem” that Chennai have is that they are filled with left handed batsmen, especially if the Australians are available. So, to provide a semblance of balance, it’s necessary that both Badrinath and Dhoni are in the top 6. They are likely to play two off-spinners (Murali and Ashwin), with Einstein on the bench. Again blessed with loads of dibbly dobblys, I think they’ll sacrifice a foreign batsman or two to accommodate Ntini – the only genuine quick.

Let me freeride on this one and give the probable team assuming Australians are NOT available.

1. Abhinav Mukund 2. S Anirudha 3. Suresh Raina 4. S Badrinath 5. MS Dhoni 6. Jacob Oram 7. Albie Morkel 8. R Ashwin 9. Sudeep Tyagi / Joginder Sharma 10. Makhaya Ntini 11. M Muralitharan

Bombay

This was one of the teams that I had missed out on last time due to my NED. So this is my first take on them. They have the same problem as the Indian team – potentially four openers will play in the XI. Jayasuriya has been dropped from the Sri Lankan ODI team, but I think Bombay will pick him due to his crowd pulling abilities. Bib has got this one mostly right – except that I won’t put two rookies (Saurabh Tiwary and Manish Pandey) in the middle order and will leave one of them out in favour of Abhishek Nayar, who is also a useful dibbly dobbly.

1. Sachin Tendulkar 2. Sanath Jayasuriya 3. Ajinkya Rahane 4. Saurabh Tiwary 5. Abhishek Nayar 6. Robin Uthappa 7. Shaun Pollock 8. Pinal Shah 9. Harbhajan Singh 10. Dilhara Fernando 11. Lasith Malinga

Once again, Malinga and Fernando have fitness issues. Also, they still haven’t completed their squad – they have only 15 guys so far. They don’t seem to have much bench strength in bowling, and I expect them to take a couple of local guys to shore up this department (the Ranji team didn’t have too many fast bowlers who played consistently). Maybe they might take Sandeep Jobanputra from Saurashtra – he’ll also provide the left arm angle. They also seem to be short on the U-22 quota – they need one more guy.

Mohali

I think I’ll still go with the line-up that I’d predicted a last month. Bib seems to have put too many bowlers in his line-up. Anyways, here’s my revised take

1. Tanmay Srivastava 2. Karan Goel 3. Kumar Sangakkara 4. Mahela Jayawardene 5. Yuvraj Singh 6. Ramnaresh Sarwan 7. Irfan Pathan 8. Brett Lee 9. Piyush Chawla 10. VRV Singh 11. Sreesanth

Again it’s interesting to see how they’ll prune their squad to 16. They have a good bench strength in the bowling department (Powar, Mills, Argal) and a good reserve keeper (Kaul). No Indian batsman on the bench though – this might be a problem

I’ll write about the other four teams tomorrow. Till then, put comments

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