Alright the batch of '25 is out and I definitely feel less pessimistic about our chances than I have in a while. I'll give my thoughts on our squad this season.
1.
Jake Fraser McGurk
2.
KL Rahul
3.
Harry Brook
4.
Tristan Stubbs
5.
Abhishek Porel
6.
Ashutosh Sharma
7.
Axar Patel
8.
Mitchell Starc
9.
Kuldeep Yadav
10.
Mukesh Kumar
11.
T Natarajan
12.
Sameer Rizvi /
Darshan Nalkande /
Mohit Sharma
Good
There's just so much batting firepower in there; Harry Brook and Tristan Stubbs have taken their T20 game to another level lately and if all goes well we have an incredible core there for an entire cycle.
There's no shortage of strike bowlers : with the sub rule its almost impossible to just restrict the batsmen since everyone is more willing to slog. Taking wickets is key and we have options from overs 1-20 for it.
I
love the fact that we did not end up spending 20+ cr for a "Marquee" player even if it happened inadvertently; they are just not worth it and our squad is better for it.
Almost everyone in the starting 11 select themselves; there's no spots that look destined to be a merry go round of mediocre players getting their chance like has been the case for the last few years
Unsure / Reserving Judgement
Completely biased here but it is my review I guess : there's a lot of players that I
personally dont rate anymore. Examples : Jake Fraser McGurk, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera and Mohit Sharma
I'm not sure we have an obvious captain; Axar Patel will probably get it due to being the top retention but it just doesnt instill too much confidence
There's a lot of one season wonders and we've gone largely off last season form. Could end up being genius or blow up in our face spectacularly
Bad
The bench looks incredibly underwhelming: amongst the uncapped Indians there's no stand out player that's set the domestic scene alight and even the overseas players bar Faf are just not IPL quality
The balance is just horrible yet again; being this light on both batting and bowling depth despite the sub rule is a sin. There's no obvious allrounders on the bench that fix this problem either
It's not hard to see how the bowling could be a problem if the Dehli wicket is just as high scoring as last season. There's almost no one in this lineup that's good in slowing the run flow on a road; it was a problem last season and will remain one this season.
We've done a poor job of getting some experienced rotation options; there were so many unsold players that could have helped us and the young players just dont seem ready to be thrown in the deep end.
Overall : I would rate our auction 7.5 and squad a 6.5; our retentions were underwhelming compared to other teams and there seems to be a decent core forming. Our lack of allrounders is very striking but we have enough match winners to win games here and there. My prediction is that we finish around 6th or 7th this season