Draft: IPL Draft - Completed!

[Bevab]

I might do the analysis post with the teams completed today. Adding in the missing teams later on should not be a problem.

 

[Bevab]

@ahmedleo414's Amazing XI

1. Gautam Gambhir
2. Robin Uthappa
3. Manish Pandey
4. Yuvraj Singh
5. Axar Patel
6. Washington Sundar
7. Pawan Negi
8. Nuwan Zoysa
9. Akila Dananjaya
   
10. Tim Southee
11. Yusuf Abdulla

- The top three have all played together and contributed to an IPL league victory. This is a unit that has been proven to work well and with Gauti's captaincy will make this team perform above the odds frequently.
- You were handed the worst lot of bowlers possible and you did your best to mitigate that with a plethora of all-rounders which means that this bowling attack will at the least have a bit of variety.
- The pure bowlers here are truly nowhere near good (with the exception of Abdulla) and I feel that you could have done better with some of your choices to get a better selection of all-rounders or at least go all in on the batting strength like the Bangalore teams of the past.

@CerealKiller's XI

1. Sanju Samson
2. Prithvi Shaw
3. Karun Nair
4. Manoj Tiwary
5. Albie Morkel
6. Shivam Dube
7. Shreyas Gopal
8. Bhuvneshwar Kumar
9. Ashley Noffke
10. Brett Lee
11. Abdur Razzak

- Shaw can provide the explosive starts that every modern T20 team aims for and Samson is capable of a blistering innings himself if he can bat through. With them being followed by two smart operators in Nair and Tiwary, there is a lot to like about this top four.
- Bhuvi and Gopal are two of the very best Indian players in what they do and they are both used to operating in dysfunctional attacks which helps out a lot here. Having said that...
- Morkel may be one of the best all-rounders in IPL history adding a lot of balance to this XI but he is arguably one position too high along with everyone else in this middle order as Gopal and Bhuvi are both fine with the bat in the longer formats but may not be ideal in the shorter ones. Yet again, an attempt to balance out the poor bowling lineup has slightly weakened the batting side of things here.

Ascending @Aislabie Asteroids

1. Mandeep Singh
2. KL Rahul
3. Manan Vohra
4. Eoin Morgan
5. Hardik Pandya
6. Krunal Pandya
7. Shahid Afridi
8. Wriddhiman Saha
9. Sohail Tanvir
10. Michael Neser
11. Amit Singh

- The batting depth in this team is insane! You have an IPL centurion all the way down at eight and a man who scored the winning runs in the inaugural IPL season at nine. This augurs well with the philosophy of being aggressive, safe in the knowledge that you have more hitters to come.
- I love the middle order composition of this XI. You could realistically get all twenty overs from the bowlers not named Neser and all of your all-rounders are used to bowling all four overs if required too. In addition, the Pandya brothers and Afridi can be very useful in the death overs to add quick runs and are very good versus spinners too.
- Some odd choices with the batting lineup means that a few players aren't utilised as well as they could have been and as a result the top order is too dependent on one KL Rahul. Having said that, is there a man more suited to this task than the player carrying the Punjabi batting line-up for the last two seasons?

 

[Bevab]

@Bigby Wolf's XI

1. Murali Vijay
2. Chris Lynn
3. Rob Quiney
4. Ambati Rayudu
5. Tatenda Taibu
6. Kedar Jadhav
7. Rajat Bhatia
8. Shaun Pollock
9. Anil Kumble
10. Ashish Nehra
11. Jasprit Bumrah

- Four world class bowlers with three of them being economical and one strike bowler to take full advantage of the pressure built exist here. With Kumble's captaincy backing them, this could be a formidable, match-winning unit.
- The presence of Vijay, Lynn and Rayudu should go a long way in minimizing any damage caused by Quiney and Taibu especially if they get out soon and allow the others to bat for longer periods.
- While Jadhav has done a fair share of bowling for India, he has not bowled a single delivery in the IPL and so this team is stuck with just five bowlers. Another good batsman/all-rounder might have arguably worked wonders to balance this team out and make it's middle order look less weaker.

@Nilay_60's Razors

1. Adam Gilchrist
   
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. Colin Ingram
4. Nitish Rana
5. Peter Handscomb
6. Abhishek Sharma
7. Bipul Sharma
8. Rahul Chahar
9. Zaheer Khan
10. Lasith Malinga
11. RP Singh

- Gilly and Tendulkar is an opening duo that would be a match made in heaven. You get the left-right, aggressive-balanced combination that shall serve wonders for your XI. Ingram was also arguably poorly utilised by Delhi, in a top order role he might be better and with Rana to follow you do have a reliable fail-safe option in any case.
- Any bowling attack with Malinga has to be taken seriously and he is backed up by real talents like Zaheer and Chahar here in addition to the underrated RP Singh. Having three bowling options for the remaining four overs is a huge bonus too.
- Another weak middle order affects the team's composition here. Unlike other teams, you do not have the batting depth to make up for it and an early collapse could leave the Sharmas being forced to play as firefighters rather than the hitters they are.

@Akshay.'s XI

1. Virender Sehwag
   
2. Ishan Kishan
3. Shreyas Iyer
4. Sarfaraz Khan
5. Andre Russell
6. Rilee Rossouw
7. Harbhajan Singh
8. Kevon Cooper
9. Deepak Chahar
   
10. Jason Holder
11. Rahul Sharma

- One look at that top five tells all that you need to know. This is a batting lineup that shall entertain fans, go all in and set high totals on most days. Good luck to any bowling lineup up against this aggressive unit.
- You have the best T20 player in this XI. He ensures that the presence of Holder and Rossouw shouldn't mean much and that any little contribution from them can be positive on most days.
- I do understand why you went for five bowlers in the XI and Bhajji does have experience at seven after all alongside Cooper and Chahar being able to hold a bat too. With a highly aggressive unit above them though, you might find yourself at 5/60 with a slogging Bhajji and a barely settled batsman at the two ends.

@Bevab's Blasters

1. Suryakumar Yadav
2. Rahul Tripathi
   
3. Saurabh Tiwary
   
4. Paul Collingwood
   
5. MS Dhoni
   
6. Shakib Al Hasan
   
7. Riyan Parag
   
8. Mitchell Johnson
   
9. Sandeep Sharma
   
10. Yuzvendra Chahal
    
11. Nathan Rimmington

- All of the batsmen here are good and can function well in their respective roles. On most days, you would back them to chase or set at least par totals.
- With Chahal and Sharma both having the experience of leading dysfunctional attacks, this team does not have to worry about the bowling part much even if Johnson works best when he has a competent overseas bowler to back him up.
- The most aggressive batsman in this lineup is Dhoni with a strike-rate of 137. Relying exclusively on him to chase above par totals is highly risky as the other middle order players aren't naturally aggressive and can easily backfire even if Dhoni is the master of a chase.

 

[Bevab]

@VC the slogger and @Na Maloom Afraad can complete their teams when they are free and I shall add their sides too.

 

[Verified Enigma]

Wanted to be a part of this so bad! Nevermind. Somewhere down the line we will again see an IPL draft...

 

[Bevab]

Wanted to be a part of this so bad! Nevermind. Somewhere down the line we will again see an IPL draft...

There might be a regular IPL draft in the future without any doubt.

 

[Verified Enigma]

There might be a regular IPL draft in the future without any doubt.

like from tomorrow? :P

 

[Akshay.]

@Bigby Wolf's XI

1. Murali Vijay
2. Chris Lynn
3. Rob Quiney
4. Ambati Rayudu
5. Tatenda Taibu
6. Kedar Jadhav
7. Rajat Bhatia
8. Shaun Pollock
9. Anil Kumble
10. Ashish Nehra
11. Jasprit Bumrah

One thing for sure Taibu is batting too high up the order

With a highly aggressive unit above them though, you might find yourself at 5/60 with a slogging Bhajji and a barely settled batsman at the two ends.

Well that will be once in a blue moon situation, so i am happy with my side overall

 

[Bevab]

Well that will be once in a blue moon situation, so i am happy with my side overall

Reminds me of England in their ODI games, nine out of ten times that amount of firepower will win you games comfortably but that one loss where your team collapses will be disastrous.

 

[Verified Enigma]

Reminds me of England in their ODI games, nine out of ten times that amount of firepower will win you games comfortably but that one loss where your team collapses will be disastrous.

How is it different from the story of Team India in CWC 19?

 

[Bevab]

How is it different from the story of Team India in CWC 19?

To me the difference is that India were/are a top heavy team with no batting depth and a fragile middle order and played conservative cricket relative to their top order's talent as a result. In contrast, England were basically a team that dictated the terms in most games, backed up by a plethora of all-rounders and hitters down the order and a world class anchor for everyone else to hit around.

 

[Yash.]

Reminds me of England in their ODI games, nine out of ten times that amount of firepower will win you games comfortably but that one loss where your team collapses will be disastrous.

They learned that the hard way, in the CT 2017 choke and the lost games of WC 2019

 

[NILAYSHAH60]

To me the difference is that India were/are a top heavy team with no batting depth and a fragile middle order and played conservative cricket relative to their top order's talent as a result. In contrast, England were basically a team that dictated the terms in most games, backed up by a plethora of all-rounders and hitters down the order and a world class anchor for everyone else to hit around.

Something that adds to this is that India as a side lacks self-belief in their batting. And this lack of self-belief changes to overconfidence when they get the momentum going their way. They seriously lack enough self-assessment.

 

[Neptune]

The problem with India in the 2019 wc was that there was no belief that the middle order would bail them out or win matches for them. After all Kohli cant ever fail right? At least Rohit wont. And in the highly unlikely that they both fail Rahul/Dhawan will bail them out. Compare this to the successful 2011 campaign in which if they were 5-3, they would believe that Yuvraj, Raina, or Dhoni would definitely win them the match. Going back to the draft, some very solid teams were picked. There are so many talented domestic players in India

 

[Verified Enigma]

The problem with India in the 2019 wc was that there was no belief that the middle order would bail them out or win matches for them. After all Kohli cant ever fail right? At least Rohit wont. And in the highly unlikely that they both fail Rahul/Dhawan will bail them out. Compare this to the successful 2011 campaign in which if they were 5-3, they would believe that Yuvraj, Raina, or Dhoni would definitely win them the match. Going back to the draft, some very solid teams were picked. There are so many talented domestic players in India

on the flipside for the first time India had a formidable pace attack with not just one, but two leads in form of Shami and Bumrah