Who has the best Indian contingent (IPL Preview - Part 2)

The next three teams:

Kings XI Punjab:

Have been a consistent disappointment in the IPL, and do not seem to have done much in terms of rejigging their squad for this edition. And quite how did they trade Dinesh Karthik to Mumbai Indians in return for R Satish is beyond me.

Key Indian contingent: Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar,Abhishek Nayar, Romesh Powar, Paul Valthaty

Again, not many amongst the Indian names that inspire confidence. The batting looks especially vulnerable and will depend strongly on their 41-year old skipper Adam Gilchrist in addition to his fellow Aussies David Hussey and Shaun Marsh. Getting to play offs seems a road too long.

Kolkata Knight Riders:

Finally achieved the play-offs last year (avoiding the ignomony of being the only team not to have made the play-offs/semi-finals in the 4 years). Have not made many changes to their Indian contingent in the recent auction, hence the core of their team will be the same.

Key Indians: Gambhir, Balaji, Rajat Bhatia, Iqbal Adullah, Yusuf Pathan, Laxmi Shukla and Manoj Tiwary

Their foreign contingent is probably the strongest in the IPL, but only 4 out of Kallis, Brett Lee, McCullum, Eoin Morgan, Sunil Narine, Pattinson, Shakib Al Hasan and Ten Deoschate would be able to play. A lot will then depend on the local talent that they have, which is quite a decent bunch. Should be closely fighting for a spot in the play-offs.

Mumbai Indians:

Clearly seemed to have the best of the auction. They lost only Ali Murtaza, Sarul Kanwar and R Satish but they have added Dinesh karthik, RP Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Gibbs, Mitchell Johnson, Thisara Perera, Richard Levi etc.

Key Indians: Tendulkar, Harbhajan, Dinesh Karthik, Dhaval Kulkarni, Pragyan Ojha, Munaf, Ambati Rayadu, Rohit Sharma, RP Singh, T Suman

Extremely strong Indian line up. Can almost make a XI out of their own. Add to that Malinga, Pollard, Levi, Thisara Perera, Gibbs etc. Also seem to have fixed the wicket-keeper problem with Karthik added. Would be a real shock if they failed to make the play-offs.

Next post will have the final three teams.

Cheers
Amit

Who has the best Indian contingent (IPL Preview - Part 1)

In just over a week from now, the action starts all over. For nearly 2 months, much of India will spend their late afternoons and evening glued to the television set following the fortunes of their teams in yet another season of the IPL. And it seems this time, the BCCI is pulling out all stops to ensure a grand season, starting off with a star-studded lineup (Amitabh, Kareena, Salman, Priyanka etc) in the opening night in Chennai on the 3rd, a day before the action kicks off at the same venue. I admit wholeheartedly that I am a big fan of the IPL and am also an equally keen supporter of Test cricket, and I also firmly believe that loving both formats of the game is not mutually exclusive. I also disagree (and I have been saying this through Facebook and Twitter) with those who blame the IPL for all the ills that currently afflict Indian cricket. It is quite strange to see the IPL being blamed for our eight successive test losses when, in fact, most of the Indian batting line-up in those games made their names much before the IPL started. People also conveniently overlook the role a tournament like IPL has played in kickstarting India's one-day performance. I do believe that had it not been for the IPL, we would have struggled to see the kind of run-chases India displayed in Hobart and Mirpur recently. As Harsha Bhogle put it very nicely 'T20 and IPL has made batsman irreverent towards targets'. So no score is really safe anymore, and that itself makes the ODI game more interesting. I can also see in the near future a 450-500 score being chased down in the fourth innings in a test match, and T20 and IPL would have a part to play in that.

But back to IPL-5. The teams have been slightly rejigged this year, the Kochi Tuskers are no longer there and their players have gone off with different teams. But amidst all this, one constant remains. The fortunes of a team would still be decided by the 7 Indian players that would feature in the starting line-up. You might have all the foreign stars in the squad, but it is the local talent that will decide how far you will go in the tournament. This has been demonstrated by Rajasthan Royals and CSK in the past. So here is a quick rundown of the squads this year (in alphabetical order) and an assessment of the Indian contingent that each franchisee has:

Chennai Super Kings:

Clearly the most successful side over the past 4 seasons that there is a good reason for that. Good leadership supported by a stable core of both local and foriegn sides that has largely remain unchanged. 

Key Indian contingent: MS Dhoni, Ashwin, Badrinath, Jadeja, Raina, Murali Vijay, Wriddhiman Saha and Abhinav Mukund

As usual, very strong Indian flavour. All Indian internationals. Expect CSK to be one of the favourites again.

Deccan Chargers:

Parthiv Patel and Darren Bravo are good additions to the Chargers squad, but the loss of Ojha to Mumbai Indians will hurt, as also will Ishant Sharma's un-availability due to injury.

Key Indian contingent: Shikhar Dhawan, Manpreet Gony, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Amit Mishra, Parthiv,Tanmay Shrivastava, TP Sudhindra

Distinctly lackluster lineup. Hardly anyone who can be betted on to set the stadium alight. A lot of will depend on Messrs Sangakarra, Steyn, Dan Christian, JP Duminy. Would be a real surprise if they make the play-offs.

Delhi Daredevils:

Lot of work seems to have happened in the interim. Middle order is suddenly power-packed with Pietersen and Mahela both coming in. Sehwag should be fresh, injury-free and hungry as well.

Key Indian contingent: Sehwag, Varun Aaron, Agarkar, Robin Bist (leading runscorer this Ranji), Irfan Pathan, Naman Ojha, Venugopal Rao, Umesh Yadav

Solid Indian contingent with a good bowling attack (hopefully the Kotla wicket would be to their liking). Add to this a top and middle order of Warner (though he will miss half the season), KP, Jaywardene and Ross Taylor and you have a team that should go far. After a lackluster couple of seasons, I expect the Daredevils to get their act together this time around. Expect a play-off spot.

The other teams will follow in the next couple of posts...

Cheers

Amit

Mission beyond 2014..

In a post last month after the disastrous test series Down Under had ended, I had written about some of the issues that needed to be addressed in order to first arrest the decline, and then improve the stock of Indian test cricket. That post was named as Mission 2014 for the reason that India's next overseas tours come about in 2014 (and there are plenty - South Africa, NZ, England, Australia in 15 months followed by the World Cup), and the post talked about the more immediate and short-term measures that can be taken over the next 18 months or so. A lot has happened since that post, none bigger and more relevant than the retirement of one of India's greatest, Rahul Dravid (more about that in a seperate post). So India will need to have a new No. 3 in their next test (thankfully, it is six months away !) and maybe a new No. 5 as well (Laxman has yet to take a call). Thus, it is all the more relevant that those in charge of Indian cricket plan long term and look beyond 2014. These are some of the issues that they need to address:

a. Making domestic cricket relevant: This, of course, is a very generic statement and one that has been debated for many years. Lots of theories and suggestions have been thrown by various people on how the domestic cricket calendar needs to be revamped, the pitches need to be made more sporting etc etc. While most of it is true and makes sense, there are some other aspects of domestic cricket that I feel also needs addressing, some of them being:

  - Get the international players to participate: This is one aspect where English and Australian cricket differs vastly from us. In England for example, only a squad of 12 is picked for home tests and on the day before the game, the 12th man is discharged from the squad and sent back to play for his domestic side while the test match is going on (substitute duties are done by a local player). Here on the other hand, we pick a squad of 14 for Tests in India and the remaining three do not have much to do apart from warming the benches. Its time we made it mandatory, to the extent possible, for the test match squad to play a couple of Ranji games every year. Imagine the effect it would have on a, say, Suryakumar Yadav from Mumbai to have a long parternship with Sachin in a Ranji game. If there are some ODI games in India going on along with a round of Ranji games, then I am even willing to have a couple of the regulars miss those ODIs and play a domestic game instead. (This is also the reason why I am a bit disappointed that Dravid will not be playing Ranji. The wisdom that he can impart to young batsmen from Karnataka from across 22 yards would have been priceless).

   - Have a proper schedule: Currently, there is a tournament called the Deodhar Trophy going on. It involves the 5 zonal sides playing one semi-final qualifier, 2 semi-finals and the final over the space of 5 days. Quite what purpose this tournament serves is beyond me (and that too, just days after the regional 50 over tournament i.e. the Vijay Hazare trophy was completed !!). Also, the Irani Trophy at the start of the season does not make sense, ideally it should be at the end with the newly-crowned Ranji champs against the persons having the best records that season. And the Duleep Trophy needs to be in a round-robin, and not a knock-out format. Thus, I would have only the following tournaments in the domestic cricket calendar:

                          NKP Salve Challenger Trophy (round-robin) : October 1 - 15

                          Duleep Trophy (round-robin) : October 15 - November 20 (hopefully on fresher wickets)

                          Ranji Trophy group stage - December 1 to January 15

                          Ranji Trophy knock out stage - January 15 to February 10

                          Irani Trophy - February 15-20

                          Vijay Hazare trophy -  February 25 - March 15

                          Indian Premier League - April - May

  And surely, the BCCI with it clout can look to ensuring that international committments are in sync with these dates.

b. Where is the Indian U-23 side ? In his biography of Mohammed Azharuddin, Harsha Bhogle talks about the India Under-25 side that toured Zimbabwe in 1984. It was captained by Ravi Shastri (already an established Test cricketer then) and current and future test players like Sidhu, Srikkanth, Azhar and Maninder Singh. Also in those days, every touring side used to play against the U-25 side before the test matches. Sadly, that tradition has been dispensed with. Except for the Emerging Players tournament in Australia, there is hardly any platform for the future Indian test cricketer to perform. This needs to change. An Under-25 or Under-23 side needs to play on a regular basis, either against touring sides or taking seperate tours to England, Australia and the like. Another interesting experiment worth doing is to have an India Under-19 squad play in the Duleep Trophy.

These are just some suggestions that, I think, would help great a strong base for Indian cricket to be succesful, not just in 2014 but also in the years ahead. They only need to look at Australia for inspiration in how to have a sound domestic structure that allows them to bounce back when their greats bow out of the game.

Cheers

Amit