Rating the squads for IPL 2015
The player auctions for the eighth season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) concluded a couple of weeks ago in Bangalore. This time around, there wasn’t too much of a hype around the event owing to the ongoing World Cup. In fact, Ireland effected the first major upset of the tournament on the very same day that the auctions took place when they beat the once mighty West Indies by 4 wickets.Another reason for a lull in interest was the fact that not many teams were expected to buy too many players given that many of the teams had undergone a revamp just one season back. Overall, a total of 344 players went under the hammer, of which 67 players were acquired by various franchises for a combined total amount of Rs. 87,60,00,000.Yuvraj Singh was the star of the auction for the second year running as the Delhi Daredevils acquired his services for a whopping amount of Rs. 16 crore. In the process, his record of being the most expensive player in the IPL was bettered by a good 2 crore. Another talking point from the auction was the rejection of some of the big names like Hashim Amla, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Alex Hales and Marlon Samuels. While the franchises gave some of the big names a miss, there was an almost crazy sort of a bidding war for certain unknown commodities such as Shreyas Iyer and KC Cariappa. While the former has played a few first-class games and has even represented the Indian U-19 team, the latter is yet to play even a single first-class game.With both of these players being very young, one can just hope that they live up to their price tag for the larger good of Indian cricket. Now that the auction has concluded, let’s take a look at each of the teams and rate them accordingly:P.S: 1) The list is in alphabetical order. 2) Every slide begins with the current squad in which the players in normal text indicate retained players while the ones in bold indicate new acquisitions.
#1 Chennai Super Kings: 9.5/10
Squad for IPL 2015: MS Dhoni, Ashish Nehra, Baba Aparajith, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith, Faf du Plessis, Ishwar Pandey, Matt Henry, Mithun Manhas, Mohit Sharma, Pawan Negi, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Samuel Badree, Suresh Raina, Ronit More, Michael Hussey, Rahul Sharma, Kyle Abbott, Irfan Pathan, Pratyush Singh, Ankush Bains, Eklavya Dwivedi, Andrew Tye.
Team Intro: In spite of all the off-field controversies, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are still the team to beat on the field. Though foreign players are important, it is the Indian players that make a big difference, an area where the Chennai-based franchise are way ahead of the other teams. Their squad consists of 16 Indian players, of which 8 either play for India or have at least played for India at some stage in their career. This amalgamation of quality Indian players with their overseas counterparts has yielded good results.
Strengths:
Captaincy: In MS Dhoni, the Super Kings have a very stable captain, someone who has led them from the very first season. He has vast experience and has led his team to a lot of success.
Excellent past record: Having made it to at least the last four in every IPL season, CSK are undoubtedly the most successful team in the IPL. Their never say die attitude has helped them get through the toughest of situations.
Well defined core and a balanced squad: Chennai have a few core players in their team whose roles are clearly defined and who they have managed to retain over the years. Their team is well balanced and does not have too many weak areas.
Weaknesses:
Over-reliance on Indian players: Given that quite a few members of CSK’s starting XI play for the Indian team, this is something that could work against them. Since the IPL commences just 10 days after the World Cup, these players could be fatigued and it may have a bearing on their performance.
Final Verdict
Yet again, CSK look the most balanced team in the tournament and will start as favourites.