A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

Expected a lot better from Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

And I am not just talking about his captaincy, his batting or his wicket-keeping. Will come back to that sometime later, though. Let me also mention here that he was my junior at school and I am a huge fan.

I am talking about his candid, straight talking approach. This has been the most endearing thing about him. We don’t mind someone who loses, as long as he gives in his best, accepts his follies and shortcomings and is gracious in defeat.

MSD is known to do that, although in his case, his win-loss record has ensured that he has rarely been under the cosh.

Now with a second T-20 World Cup debacle behind him, he has let us all down by abandoning his candour and adopting evasiveness – blaming the IPL parties for his team’s lack of energy and vigour. He didn’t blame the matches – probably hoping that he could fool us into believing that the parties were attended by the Indian players only.

Unfortunately for him, this ploy has not worked and the heat is well and truly on him right now. Everyone, including the highly erudite and highly tainted Mohd Azharuddin, has lashed out at him for his lame-duck justification and many have called for his ouster as well.

I am sure the Indian selectors will do better than that but it is disturbing to discover that Dhoni’s forthrightness was probably a veneer – his successful record as captain affording him the freedom to talk straight. And now it’s worn off as soon as the tide turned against him.

And yet, that is not even half the reason why his justification has pissed me off.

It is because it has completely taken the attention away from the real issues. While everyone is talking about the IPL parties, people have simply forgotten about the real reasons why we were unceremoniously knocked out.

Most of them pertain to our inability to have the right squad for the tournament, pick the best eleven, score quickly against short-pitched bowling and make the right decisions on the field. MS Dhoni surely deservers part of the blame but atleast in his defence you can say that his tactics have often done the trick for India and CSK in the past. The teams have benefitted from Dhoni’s willingness to back certain players and his rigid belief in his tactics.

The other guilty party is the BCCI and in their case, the reasons for the dismal showing are off-shoots of a long standing malaise. They have been common knowledge for the longest time but hardly anything has been done about it. Most of us have already stopped pointing them out. And that is why we have taken greater relish in lambasting Dhoni for the ‘IPL parties’ justification rather than go through the fruitless exercise of pointing out the larger issues with Indian cricket.

I will repeat the issues one more time.

We don’t have sporting pitches in the country and hence most of batsmen are unable to score quickly against short pitched bowling (they don’t have a problem playing them. Otherwise we would have never won text matches abroad). BCCI fully responsible.

We select certain players on form and certain players on reputation, depending on what is convenient and often ignore the playing conditions. Still haven’t understood the selection of Piyush Chawla for instance. Also why Murli Vijay was selected and Ambati Rayudu was not. Dhoni will have to take part of the blame but largely it’s the BCCI’s fault.

Dhoni is largely responsible for the playing eleven and the decisions on the field. Especially for playing with atleast one bowler short. But he cannot be blamed for the lack of all-rounders in Indian cricket. You have no choice but to play the likes of Yusuf Pathan and Ravinder Jadeja when they are the closest thing Indian cricket has to an all-rounder. His penchant for all-rounders is well known (His highly successful CSK side is packed with them).

Luckily for the BCCI mandarins, MS Dhoni has ensured that everyone has stopped talking about the faulty squad selection or short-pitched bowling or lack of all-rounders. In fact the ‘IPL parties’ statement has given people a chance to take another swipe at the man who was responsible for starting them – Lalit Modi.

MSD had a bad tournament (Do we realize that his innings against Sri Lanka – 23 not out off 19 balls does a world of good for his average and strike rate but in the circumstances it was a BAD performance). He could have easily done what he always does – own up to the performance and talk about the real issues – and moved on. We would have still continued to love him. Instead he has shocked us with a laughable excuse, sullying a reputation he had so painstakingly built. And even worse is the favour he has done to the BCCI.

It was amusing when he called a red traffic light a red light area and we had all laughed. This time the only people laughing are the big bosses of the BCCI.

Jacob Oram’s injury was probably the best bit of good fortune enjoyed by any of the teams in this year’s IPL. It opened a slot for a foreign player and the Super Kings plugged a gigantic hole in their fast bowling department by adding the Australian. Bollinger made an immediate impact and the rest as they say is history.

It was akin to the way teams in European football or in North American sports replenish their squads through the mid-season trade window, albeit in Chennai’s case it was the injury to Oram which created this opportunity. Teams generally add a few vital pieces as they head toward the business end of the season. The mid –season trade window is an extremely important element of the league; additions made during it have been known to affect the destination of league titles; fans excitedly look forward to it and sports analysts have a field day conjuring up various trade scenarios.

The IPL governing body could well give their teams a chance to do the same by adding a mid season trade window starting from 2011. It will ensure that teams struggling in one or more departments of their game will have a chance to address their flaws in a manner very similar to Chennai’s. A side like Delhi could have added a new batsman instead of recycling the out of form de Villiers and Dilshan. The home stretch of the league could become even more interesting.

Additions could be done in two ways : teams could either trade amongst themselves and/or have the option to sign one or two foreigners. The number of foreigners in the playing eleven does not have to be changed.

Even if the governing council fails to make this change for the next edition, teams could create this opportunity on their own by leaving one or two foreign player slots empty. This shouldn’t impact them adversely in the first half of the league because hardly any sides use all their foreign players. And even the best prepared sides ( Chennai had three fast bowlers who had played for India) can be stumped by the conditions, injuries or a sudden drop in player form. The trade window will see to it that they have a chance to bounce back with a Bollinger or two of their own. The quality additions can be made because there is a large enough pool of cricketer not playing the IPL; many of them missing from the initial part of the league because of international commitments.

Bollinger’s addition lead to a fairy-tale revival for the Super Kings. Thanks to his example, more bounce backs can be expected in the coming seasons

Wonder if these guys ever talk about improving the Ranji Trophy?

The BCCI wants India to play as many international fixtures to possible because these matches net them a lot of money. Subsequently the heavy international calendar ensures that the tired Indian internationals rarely play in the domestic tournaments like the Ranji trophy, unless they have been dropped and are looking to prove a point. This reduces the star quotient of the domestic circuit and dilutes the quality of the cricketing fare and the intensity of the competition. A combination of these reasons ensures that the fans stay away and as a result the state associations and the BCCI make very little money from these games. As a result these bodies take very little active interest in these games. No effort is made to improve the state of these domestic tournaments.

The players who play in these tournaments have a million reasons to feel dispirited. They play in front of nonexistent crowds. They get paid poorly. And realistically speaking they don’t have a great opportunity to make a case for themselves, thanks to the poor quality of the pitches and the lack of quality competition. Runs scored and wickets taken are always taken with a pinch of salt. Players are rarely put in situations which test their mental fortitude and help them mature as cricketers. Most of the players who shine and get a chance to play at the next level are not well prepared to handle the rarefied air of international cricket. And not because they didn’t have the ability but because they have no experience or practise of having played on sporting pitches or against quality opposition or having been in tough situations. 99% of people reading this will not be able to name the top scorer and the top wicket- taker in last season’s Ranji trophy . If you can then may god bless you.

So is it wrong if players are ready to give an arm and a leg to play in the IPL?

The money is important but there are many other reasons why domestic players would be ready to forego the entire Ranji Trophy season to play a couple of IPL games

Prof Ratnakar Shetty and the BCCI are worried about the charms of the IPL but are they doing anything to make the Ranji Trophy exciting.

The Ranji format is flawed and fundamentally prone to produce defensive boring cricket. Borrowing a few ideas from Australia and South Africa will address that problem. But Mr Shetty and gang either find high scoring draws exciting or they schedule their discussions on domestic cricket during the IPL’s 10 minute strategic timeouts.

Seriously , is it absolutely impossible to market the Ranji Trophy in a cricket crazy country like ours?

Will it be difficult to draw crowds and attract sponsors if UP’s pace battery of RP Singh, Pravin Kumar and Sudeep Tyagi took on the might of Gambhir and Sehwag on a bouncy track with both sides playing to win. A few foreign players could be thrown in to add to the competitive intensity and the star power.

Will this lead to revenue generation from the Ranji Trophy and a better lot of players coming out of domestic cricket.

Yes

Is that in the best interests of the BCCI, the state associations, future India aspirants as well as Indian cricket in general

Yes

Does the BCCI control all the variables that are required to make this happen?

Yes, unless they are being blackmailed by someone from another cricketing nation who has a video of the entire board involved in a gay orgy in the middle of the Wankhede

One of the biggest challenges facing the ICC is the expansion of the game – how to make it popular in more countries.

There are a lot of new countries which play the game but it looks unlikely that the game will really take off there.

The reasons for this not happening are manifold

There is little or no financial security for a player from one of the emerging countries. This is a huge deterrent and creates a multitude of other challenges. It stops people from taking to the game in a big way – The players are largely restricted to expatriates from the major cricket playing nations. Few native residents take to the sport and as a result there is a small pool of players available and the country cannot improve as a cricketing nation.

There are other issues for the lot who take to the sport braving the financial uncertainties. They need to play against better opposition on a regular basis to improve their game. They require exposure to top quality coaching and cricketing stratagem. For lack of all these, even the most talented cricketers from a lesser nation cannot realise his full potential.

As the sport isn’t very popular, the country lacks for funds and can barely develop any kind of infrastructure or run coaching and scouting programs for young players.

Other than international cricket, opportunities to play cricket exist in the IPL and the domestic leagues of England, Australia and South Africa but they are extremely limited. When a clutch of established players can go undrafted in the IPL, what chance does an unheralded player from a developing cricketing nation have?

Other than the task of growing the game in the developing nations, the ICC also needs to arrest the slide that the game is facing in countries like Zimbabwe and the West Indies. These countries are also suffering from lack of sufficient funds

Many these problems could be addressed, atleast in large part, if there were a few more professional leagues on the lines of the IPL.

Before we explain how, we first need to confirm if cricket can accommodate more such leagues.

In terms of availability of players there shouldn’t be a problem. There are enough international players without IPL affiliations to support atleast a couple of more leagues. Then there are the first class players from other cricket playing nations. And finally there are the players from the lesser cricketing nations – atleast a few of them will find a place if there were more leagues.

Finding sponsors is not a problem. And as far as markets are concerned, India itself can accommodate more than one league. The last IPL showed that even a country like South Africa can support a league like this. All in all there shouldn’t be a problem in having more than one league.

There could be questions about whether the new leagues would be as popular as the IPL. After all spectator interest is driven by marquee names and currently the IPL seems to have all of them. This issue will automatically get addressed by market economics and player preferences as it happens in the case of football. If there was a league based in Australasia, then a lot of players from the southern hemisphere could gravitate there. Team owners from different leagues could outbid each other for the big names.

A Champions League amongst teams from different leagues will also make more sense.

Scheduling shouldn’t be a problem. The ICC is anyways trying to set aside a window for the IPL. The other leagues could be held around the same time as it happens in football or even basketball.

Now to understand how it will help the ICC in promoting the game in the newer cricketing nations and rescuing it in the West Indies.

More leagues will mean more requirements for players. Today’s IPL teams have a choice of plenty when it comes to foreign players and are hard pressed to find good Indian ones. The good teams are slowly realizing the merits of scouting and player development. The proliferation of leagues will take this to the next level. Today an IPL team based in Rajasthan goes and scouts for talent in the states of Gujarat and M.P. Tomorrow they could be headed to Barbados and Western Australia and even Harare. There will opportunities for talented players from the lesser nations as well. Countries like Trinidad and Tobago and Wales are nothing in international football. We would have never heard of the likes of Dwight Yorke and Ryan Giggs if there was no premiership. We wouldn’t have heard of Hakeem Olajuwon if there was no NBA.

American baseball teams run full-fledged programs in the Central and South American nations. These programs help in identify and training future stars. Lots of European clubs do the same in Africa and South America. This way the clubs help build the infrastructure and run the youth programs – things which the poorly funded national association cannot do most of the time.

The Pittsburgh Pirates recently found two Indians with the physical tools to become top class pitchers. They took them to America and offered them professional contracts. They are currently playing in the minor leagues and are being top class training. If one of them could make it to the top then the Pirates would do more for the game of baseball in India then the Baseball Federation of Indian could have ever done. A team like the Delhi Daredevils could do the same thing in cricket for a less endowed cricketing nation.

The professional leagues will offer financial security to a talented player from a lesser nation. A player with potential will have all the motivation to actively pursue the game. Playing with the best in the business will help them realize their full potential. These players will learn a lot from playing in the leagues and that will help them when they play for their national sides. Other players from their countries will also benefit from the experience of these players. Some of them could learn enough from the experience to eventually become scouts and coaches – they will help in finding and grooming more talent. These guys could serve as great role models inspiring to induct a whole new generation into the sport.

Most of these benefits could apply to a country like the West Indies as well. The drying talent pool could be reinvigorated if more cricketers could make a good living playing abroad. Jamaica made it to the World Cup of Football, thanks to the bunch of players who play in the lesser leagues in England. Would these players have had the same appetite for the game if they had to do a day job to support their families and playing for the national team was the best they could do.

Would this reduce the importance of international cricket?

No, because International cricket would still serve as the best platform to display your talent to the clubs. Players with international experience will always be more sought and better paid. The ICC could do a few things to ensure that the sanctity and popularity of international cricket remains intact – Like defining some quotas for international players. They will also need to handle the scheduling of the international and league calendar in a manner that players don’t get burnt out and there is minimal conflict of interest.

In twenty -20, the ICC has discovered a format that they can market to the world. Creating more professional leagues will go a long way in making the game truly global.

The IPL was expected to be different in South Africa, but no one would have expected so many things to change.

The crowd and the atmosphere in the stadium was a pale shadow of the frenzy of the 2008 edition but that was on expected lines. What really took us by surprise, and pleasantly so, was the return to sanity for bowlers of all kinds. The run-rate on day one was a measly 6.68 and atleast half a dozen bowlers had outstanding outings as compared to just three batsmen. The pitches in South Africa are not averse to big hitting but they ask more from a batsmen – it isn’t as easy as the sub-continental wickets to just stand and plunder. Additionally, they embellish the bowler’s arsenal, creating a more even and more honest contest between bat and ball.

This created the ideal situation for Tendulkar, Dravid and Kumble to make their mark on the game. Suddenly the ‘Icons’ from last time have really started to look like one. I am sure VVS Laxman can’t wait to get to the middle.

This also changes the outlook of the squads. With bowlers becoming more potent, sides with depth in bowling are looking better than ever. The greater challenges for batsmen would have also raised the spirits of the so called solid players – the likes of Chanderpaul in RCB and Collingwood in DD appear quite invaluable.

The other refreshing change was the capitulation of the two finalists from last time. Two well-rounded sides with brilliant leaders were humbled. It would have put to rest the fears that the gulf in quality between the high flying and low lying sides from 2008 would be widened further in 2009, leading to a slew of one-sided games. While it will be too early to throw the form guide out of the window, one can definitely look forward to a more closely fought out league this time round.

First impressions

Mumbai were one of the favourites and look very good with their impressive array of bowlers. The solidity at the top of the order will also come in handy.

Chennai’s batsmen looked very rusty and the side failed to even mount a charge towards the end. The think-tank needs to get the selection right. However, they are a loaded side and have the resources to ring in the changes.

Bangalore benefitted from two of their ‘test’ players and could play a few more. Their bowling looks better than expected with Praveen returning to his best. Playing Uthappa as keeper looks a smart gamble, opening up Boucher’s place for the likes of Ross Taylor, Kallis or Nathan Bracken.

Rajasthan were guilty of some poor shot making and could do with a little more solidity at the top. Unfortunately for them, the foreign quota is already well utilized, and one of the Indian guys (Mohd Kaif) who could have provided stability has already been sent home.

Two leggies and a googly

Leg-spinners hate to get out to another leggie. They pride themselves on being able to read the opposite numbers variations better than the best of batsmen. But, while Shane Warne has never quite managed to master the googly, Anil Kumble has. And the Indian used the perfect weapon in his armoury to inflict the worst humiliation on Warne (failing to read the googly and getting stumped) and win the leg-spinners’ bragging rights.

What makes you pine for Krish Srikkanth, Rameez Raja and Ranjit Fernando

Lalchand Rajput.

Suddenly Arun Lal is made to look like Richie Benaud. Where have all the former players gone? Rajput’s appointment as an expert is either a secret conspiracy by Lal to make himself look good or its possible he won a BCCI sponsored reality show for former cricketers.

Dude of the Day – This goes to the only player who reminded us of the big hitting of the last IPL – Abhishek Nayar of the Mumbai Indians. Can’t think of anyone else who has hit Freddie for 3 sixes in an over.

Dud of the Day – No cricketer stands out. Instead we will hand it to the guys who took an eternity trying to get the black dog off the ground.

Read all the IPL Daily Doses so far

Ready to make a move up the ranks

Team Composition

The stars of Mumbai’s foreign contingent are Sanath Jayasuriya and JP Duminy. The Sri Lankan veteran returns after an outstanding 2008 season, while the young South African is a star in the making. Other than these two, there aren’t any big guns amongst Mumbai’s foreign players. Dwayne Bravo is a more than useful all-rounder and there are a couple of decent speedsters in Dilhara Fernando and Kyle Mills. Mohd Ashraful and Graham Napier are capable of big hitting but are also highly inconsistent. Mumbai haven’t quite got the same firepower in their foreign brigade as most of the other teams. The lack of capable replacements would hurt if the first unit doesn’t click.

While their foreigners are a little lightweight, the Indians in the Indians’ side definitely pack a punch. First there is Sachin Tendulkar, still capable of winning matches on his own, and then there are two of the best bowlers in world cricket – Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh. There is also Dhawal Kulkarni, who broke through in the last IPL and followed that with a superb domestic season leading to a national call-up. Shikhar Dhawan and Abhishek Nayar are their best domestic players and both played stellar roles in the 2008 edition of the league. Mumbai is the richest cricket nursery in the country and they are well capable of unearthing a few hidden talents as well. The likes of Saurabh Tiwary, Ajinkya Rahane and Jaydev Shah provide some bench strength as well.

Leadership and think-tank

Sachin Tendulkar has loads of experience but is definitely not a great captain. And the same is true of his de-facto deputy, Sanath Jayasuriya. Mumbai’s failure to win the close games cost them a semi-final berth last time and they cannot afford to do the same again.

Best Playing Eleven

Tendulkar, Jayasuriya, Shikhar Dhawan/Rahane, JP Duminy, Graham Napier/ Ashraful, Abhishek Nayar/Saurabh Tiwary, Bravo/Kyle Mills/Dilhara Fernando, Takawale/Pinal Shah, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Dhawal Kulkarni/Rohan Raje

Balance of the team

Mumbai’s weakness is their batting as they have only a handful of quality batsmen in the entire squad. On the flip-side almost everyone in the side can turn their arm over and that gives their captain a never –ending list of bowling options. Not having a high calibre wicket –keeper batsman also disturbs the balance of their side.

Ideal Game Plan

In Zaheer, Harbhajan and Bravo, Mumbai have three excellent death bowlers. It is a safer bet to put your money on their bowlers to win you games at the end.

Final Verdict

Should move up a rung to make the semis this year. Once there anything can happen.

Other IPL Previews

Delhi Daredevils

Deccan Chargers

Chennai Super Kings

Royal Challengers Bangalore

The challenges of building a winning IPL side

With a strong side they can dare anyone

Team Composition

Delhi has two of the finest Twenty-20 bowlers in world cricket in McGrath and Vettori. They also have 4 international all-rounders, out of whom Maharoof made a great impression in the last IPL. The others – Collingwood, Dilshan and McDonald are quite handy and give the Delhi side a gaggle of options. And then there are two swashbuckling batsmen. In home conditions, AB de Villiers will be as good as any other batsmen in the competition. On the other hand, David Warner has made an outstanding start to his international Twenty-20 career. Arguably, the Daredevils have the best foreign lot in the tournament. They have top quality bowlers and batsmen, a wide array of all-rounders and even a top wicket-keeper batsman. That is quite a feat considering that except for Vettori, all the others were picked up for bargain rates.

The stars of the Indian contingent are Sehwag and Gambhir, who on current form are probably the best opening pair in almost all forms of cricket. They also have a quartet of fringe Indian internationals in Amit Mishra, Ashish Nehra, Manoj Tiwary and Dinesh Karthik. The first two had fine IPL seasons last year while the last two have had splendid domestic seasons with Tiwary singlehandedly leading Bengal to the national one-day final. The domestic representation is also decent with the notable names being Rajat Bhatia, Yo Mahesh, Pradeep Sangwan and Mithun Manhas. The only cause for concern is the lack of any good Indian all-rounder. But overall, the Delhi side has good bench strength and the team should benefit from a healthy competition for places.

Leadership and think-tank

Virender Sehwag has not proven to be a good captain. His risky care free approach is fine for his batting but can be detrimental for the side when applied to captaincy. Leadership is definitely not Delhi’s strongest card.

Best Playing Eleven

Sehwag, Gambhir, AB de Villiers/Warner, Tiwary, Owais Shah/Paul Collingwood/Dilshan, Dinesh Karthik/Rajat Bhatia/Manhas, Farvez Maharoof/Vettori/McDonald, Amit Mishra, Sangwan/ Yo Mahesh, Nehra, McGrath

Balance of the team

Delhi’s brittle middle order and weak cast of support bowlers was their undoing last year. The 2009 side seems to have improved on the bowling but the lower-middle order still looks shaky. They would have been much stronger if they had a good batting all-rounder from amongst the Indians. But they still have one of the strongest squads in the competition.

Ideal Game Plan

Last year they won almost every time their bowlers restricted the opposition to a manageable total. With a better bowling attack they should try more of the same this year.

Final Verdict

Could go all the way. Will surely be in the top 4 in the league stage.

Other IPL Previews

Deccan Chargers

Chennai Super Kings

Royal Challengers Bangalore

The challenges of building a winning IPL side

Nobody can stop them from coming last again

Team Composition

On paper Deccan have a trio of big hitters in Symonds, Gibbs and Gilchrist, who are capable of single-handedly winning a game. However, there are question marks over how much Gilly has left in the tank and what’s going on in Symmo’s head. They have a couple of useful West Indians (Edwards and Dwayne Smith) and three others who are past their prime (Vaas, Zoysa and Styris). At best the Chargers’ foreign contingent gives them destructive batting power and a few utility players. For a side which lost most of its domestic players to the ICL, they needed more from their foreign quota. Also their best players are all of the same type; they could have done with more variety in the skill sets of their international recruits.

Rohit Sharma, RP Singh and Pragyan Ojha are their current Indian internationals. Amongst them Rohit is the only bonafide match-winner. They also have VVS Laxman, who doesn’t do much in this form of the game and Venugopal Rao, who surprised us in the last edition with some lusty hitting. Thanks to the mass ICL exodus, their domestic contingent is the worst in the IPL. D Ravi Teja is the only serviceable player from the local lot. The end result is that there are barely enough players to put together a decent eleven, forget having a bench which creates competition for places in the playing eleven. If plan A doesn’t work they still continue with it because they don’t have the extra options to conjure a plan B

Leadership and think-tank

Adam Gilchrist has no leadership experience and Darren Lehman has no coaching credentials. That’s quite a think tank that the Chargers have.

Best Playing Eleven

Gilchrist, Laxman, Rohit, Symonds/Gibbs, Dwayne Smith/Silva/Styris, Venugopal Rao, Ravi Teja/Arjun Yadav, RP Singh, Fidel Edwards/Zoysa/Vaas, Ojha, Kalyankrishna/Sarveesh Kumar

Balance of the team

They hardly make a proper eleven. The top order is loaded but there is no middle order or lower order. Opposition sides just need to get the first 4-5 wickets to put the Chargers on the mat. The absence of any quality all-rounders adds to the imbalance. Bowling is limited with few options other than the regulars.

Ideal Game Plan

To have no expectations of winning and play with reckless abandon. This way the players will feel no pressure and probably end up playing much better than they would have done otherwise.

Final Verdict

Hot favourites for the wooden spoon once again. Don’t even have a whiff of a chance to challenge for a semi-final spot.

Other IPL Previews

Chennai Super Kings

Royal Challengers Bangalore

The challenges of building a winning IPL side

Well prepared to roar again

Team Composition

Chennai have a batting stud at the top (Hayden), three of the best all-rounders in the Twenty-20 game (Morkel, Flintoff and Oram) and two high- quality bowlers (Murali and Ntini). These six players are all match winners in their own right and make for an explosive foreign contingent. Especially crucial is the presence of the all-rounders which gives this team an amazing balance and the capability to change tactics on the fly. Chennai are also one of the few teams which can call upon almost its entire foreign brigade (except for Freddie) for the entire length of the tournament and that is a significant advantage – the team doesn’t need to change its game plan mid-tournament and it helps create a settled side. They can also call upon Michael Hussey if they make the semis.

To add to the foreigners, the team has a couple of Indian superstars in MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina. And if that was also not enough, they have a clutch of fringe internationals as well. Gony, Balaji and Badrinath impressed in the last IPL and have since been part of the Indian one-day contingent. Parthiv Patel narrowly missed the bus to New Zealand whereas Joginder Sharma has experienced Twenty-20 cricket in South Africa before.

Tamil Nadu won the national one-day tournament this year and as a result CSK has the finest lot of domestic players on board. Abhinav Mukund led the title triumph and then there is Murli Vijay who has already made the national test side. There is strength in the reserves in the form of Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan, Ashwin, Palani Amarnath, Sudeep Tyagi and Suresh Kumar, all of whom impressed in the last domestic season. The Super Kings are loaded across the board.

Leadership and think-tank

They are captained by one of the finest captains in world cricket today and the coach is one of the most astute cricket minds of the years gone by. The possibility of any ego clash or power struggle between the two does not exist and together they will make for a heady combination.

Best Playing Eleven

Hayden/Fleming, Parthiv/Murli Vijay/Abhinav Mukund/Vidyut, Suresh Raina, Badrinath, Dhoni, Flintoff/Oram, Morkel, Joginder/Ashwin, Balaji/Amarnath/, Gony, Ntini/Muralitharan

Balance of the team

The team has great bench strength and can play three top class allrounders (including Dhoni who can walk into most sides purely on his batting ability) in any game. This gives the side amazing balance. However, they are lacking another quality middle order batsman, especially one familiarized with the South African conditions, and a few part time bowlers. In the last edition, the side suffered some middle order collapses once Michael Hussey left and could suffer the same fate again.

Game Plan

It will depend on how well their middle order adapts to the pitches. If they can’t, batting second would be a better option. Even otherwise they had a better record batting second last time.

Final Verdict

One of the favourites to go all the way, they should easily make the semis.

Other IPL Previews

Royal Challengers Bangalore

The challenges of building a winning IPL side

Will not be rising to the challenge again

Team Composition

RCB have a decent first unit of foreign players – a match winning batsman (KP who will be replaced by Ross Taylor), a fine wicket-keeper batsman (Boucher), two outstanding bowlers (Steyn and Bracken), and a couple of up and coming all-rounders (Ryder and Van Der Merwe). The problem is that decent is not good enough for them because their Indian Internationals and domestic players are barely average. They needed more firepower from their foreign players. And their most reliable match-winner isn’t even playing half the tournament. For RCB to make an impact, they will need their entire foreign contingent to play at an exceptional level from start to finish.

Amongst the Indian lot, the best players are Praveen Kumar, Wasim Jaffer, Virat Kohli, Robin Uthappa and Anil Kumble – a pack which hardly inspires belief – none of them have been in the national one-day or Twenty-20 side for a while. Bangalore fans can’t expect many match-winning performances from them. Out of the others, Shreevats Goswami, Vinay Kumar, B Akhil, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Pankaj Singh are promising but none of them had an outstanding domestic season this year. It is really a sad state of affairs that RCB has only got 10 decent players to fill 7 places in the playing eleven for the entire tournament. There is hardly any competition for places and the lack of bench strength eliminates the scope for having any flexibility in the game-plan. They better hope they don’t have any injuries as that will make it even worse for them.

Leadership and think-tank

Only Mr. Mallya knows who will be captain once KP packs his bags and leaves and that is a grim reminder of the fact that this is a rudderless boat. Also considering, how the Liquor baron treated his captain last year, few would be willing to don the mantle. The saving grace is that they have a coach who is well-versed with the conditions and quite capable of using that knowledge to his team’s advantage.

Best Playing Eleven

Ryder, Kohli, Taylor/KP,Uthappa,Van Der Merwe/Kallis ,Goswami, Boucher, Kumble, Pravin Kumar, Vinay Kumar/Pankaj Singh/Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Steyn/Bracken

Balance of the team
As the possible line-up shows, the team is highly imbalanced. There are too many openers and one –down players and hardly any middle order batsmen. It is difficult to pick out the batsman who will anchor this batting line-up – it will probably be Ross Taylor or Jacques Kallis. The bowling is steady and can be counted upon to defend a good total. Wonder how many times they will be defending one.

Game Plan

Bowling is their stronger suit and their bowlers are more capable of handling pressure towards the end of the game. Can’t see them chasing well. Should try to bat first.

Final Verdict

Can’t see them bettering their performance from last time. In a best case scenario, if their foreign brigade really fires, they will end up 5th or 6th. No way do they make the semis.

Other IPL Previews

The challenges of building a winning IPL side