Stephen Fleming: The IPL auctions mastermind
The highly-awaited IPL auction is set to take place soon, with every team having a chance to rebuild a quality squad from scratch, with the right combination of local and foreign players.
It will be one of the few instances when all the players will go into the IPL auctions, except for the 2-3 players who have been retained by their previous franchise. It is going to be a tough job for the teams' management to bag a particular player from a big pool of 578.
Studies of the previous auctions show that Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore's support staff were high spenders, while Rajasthan Royals (under Rahul Dravid) and Chennai Super Kings's staff were the most clever in selecting players throughout the IPL.
The architect of one of the most successful IPL teams, CSK, is Stephen Fleming. The former New Zealand Captain, currently working as a coach for CSK, had played for the team in the first edition of IPL. He represented the team, made a strong bond with the team-mates and became a coach. It is the bond with MS Dhoni which had taken him to Pune from Chennai as the head coach of the Rising Pune Supergiant in the absence of CSK.
Fleming, being a part of IPL auction for so many years, knows how to build a team with the least changes. He is one who does not like to change the whole squad or rebuild it every season. His out of the blue picks raised eyebrows for many (e.g: Manoj Tiwary, Jaydev Unadkat, Rahul Tripathi) but those picks were crucial for the fortunes of the RPS last year)
By observing past IPL auctions, it can be seen that he knows how to strategize and execute his plans. Unlike Delhi and Mumbai, he would prefer a player for which less competition is available in the auction room. Players above, for example, Rs. 10 crores sometimes become a burden for a franchise because the management and fans expect him to go the extra mile.
It is a gamble that sometimes works, maybe not always. Fleming, though not a good spender, spent Rs. 14.5 crores on Ben Stokes last year. His expressions at that time was priceless, indicating it was too much. Fortunately, it worked for Fleming and the RPS team as they finished as runners-up.
Another quality of Fleming is that he usually does not want to change the rapport of the team. Along with the team management, he tries to retain the core, retaining players who have played with them before. The best examples are bringing the likes of Michael Hussey, Subramaniam Badrinath, Ben Hilfenhaus back in the team during earlier seasons.
For this auction, he has already retained MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja, and he might go for players who played under Dhoni and for CSK, like Ravichandran Ashwin, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo (possibly via RTM), Vijay Shankar, Tim Southee, Andrew Tye and many more.
He knows how to manage the team-building process while properly maintaining the budget. The most important aspect is how he knows when to step back from the limelight, something which sets him apart from others. This season, we will see Mike Hussey as the batting coach of CSK, combine with Stephen Fleming, truly a mastermind when it comes to the auctions.