Indian Premier League - General Discussion

[Akshay.]

Kuldeep badly needs to work on his bowling. He doesn't look threatening at all.

Has anyone noticed the number of leg spinners we have?
Almost each team has one
Chahar, Chawla, Karn, Chahal, Bishnoi, Gopal, Tewatia, Markande, Mishra
The best in the country is obviously Chahal
Also, Bishnoi is impressive and his action is unique

 

[NILAYSHAH60]

Morgan does not have to be an established IPL player when he is an established international cricketer captaining the side who just won a world cup. Moving DK to open will allow Morgan to come in early and do what he did today, took time to settle and than explode.

Also Gill played a really good innings today, real mature. Him along with Shaw, Iyer, Pant, Agarwal, Mavi, Nagarkoti are future of Indian cricket, they need to be groomed correctly.

For the next match, I would go with

Dinesh Kartick
Shubman Gill
Nitish Rana
Eoin Mortan
Rinku Singh
Andre Russell
Sunil Narine
Pat Cummins/Ferguson
Kuldeep
Mavi
Nagarkoti/Varun

I forgot to mention DK has his own issues against the new ball and he doesn't suit much in the top order because of the way he plays. He might not be successful opening the batting which is another concern that I have. The best spot that suits DK is no.6

So we can do it this way

1. Gill
2. Narine
3. Rana
4. Morgan
5. Russell
6. DK
7. Pat Cummins
8. Kuldeep
9. Nagarkoti
10. Mavi
11. Varun Chakravarthy

And if you would need another opener in place of Narine then Tripathy is a good option or even Siddhesh Lad.

 

[CerealKiller]

CSK have gotten into a serious muddle, as Fleming has put it after the match. I wonder what soul searching are they going to do in the 1 week break that they've got. This defeat to DC has shaken them at the core with lot of questions and fear of 'losing their enviable record of 100% playoffs'

I would personally go with this XI for the SRH match atleast and see how this works:

Watson
Faf
Ruturaj
Rayudu
Dhoni
Jadeja
Bravo
Curran
Chawla
Chahar
Saikishore

Vijay and Jadhav are truly batters who have grafted and they don't fit the scheme of things. Watson showed some glimpses of getting his hitting mojo back. I would move Faf up to open with Watson. Faf has been brilliant with the bat, but the recurrent theme of his batting so far has been that he starts slow and takes time before he gets into "I can do anything" mode. And that leaves the other batter with all the pressure (Rayudu handled it successfully against MI; Curran/Ruturaj/Jadhav didn't against RR and same story against DC). Push him up to open. Have Ruturaj at No. 3. This boy needs to be persisted with. Cant sack him for the two low scores because he has played under extreme pressure situations but he has lot of potential. Rayudu at No. 4 is self explanatory. Dhoni HAS to bat No. 5. He cant go any lower. And then have Jadeja, Bravo and Curran as the lower order hitters after Dhoni. This way, Dhoni has cushion after him and can go at the bowling early. Playing Watson/Faf/Bravo/Curran means CSK cant play any of Santner/Tahir/Ngidi/Hazlewood. I would play an extra spinner in Saikishore, who as Bevab said, is a Powerplay bowler. Also a new wild card that can be thrown at teams as they would have not played him much (If we need an extra seamer, play Shardul or Asif). Which means Bravo/Chahar have to handle death bowling duties with an over or two from Curran. I guess we can live with that if the batting sorts itself out and is ready to chase down tall scores or set big scores.

This is your 20000th post on the forums

 

[Bevab]

Loving Smudge's team selection here, when you have this amount of batting depth you can afford to not play a batsman or two especially when both the openers like to bat through. Also love that he has made himself open, for an accumulator the opening spot is clearly the best.

 

[wasteyouryouth]

Looking forward to seeing Buttler at this Sharjah ground. Would have liked to see Gayle too but maybe Rahul will get going again.

 

[Bevab]

This is some fiery start.

 

[Aalay]

Mayank mother****ing Agarwal! I love the way he plays against the spinners. Punjab currently looks good to get around 220 which I think will be tough to chase especially considering how well Shami and Cottrell have bowled for them upfront. However, if Butler and Smith can survive that new ball spell, they definitely will get a chance to cash in considering Punjab's death bowling is not as strong and the fifth bowling option for Punjab is not that strong either.

 

[Bevab]

Mayank mother****ing Agarwal! I love the way he plays against the spinners. Punjab currently looks good to get around 220 which I think will be tough to chase especially considering how well Shami and Cottrell have bowled for them upfront. However, if Butler and Smith can survive that new ball spell, they definitely will get a chance to cash in considering Punjab's death bowling is not as strong and the fifth bowling option for Punjab is not that strong either.

After years of watching spinners dominate India recently, Mayank feels like a huge breath of fresh air.

 

[Aalay]

After years of watching spinners dominate India recently, Mayank feels like a huge breath of fresh air.

Agreed! I still remember how he took on Nathan Lyon at MCG in his very first test match. He has improved even more after that.

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

Shh lets not jinx MA. Kings XI have the best opening pair period in this IPL. If they keep playing this way, release Gayle to CSK :-p

 

[Bevab]

This is a top class knock from Mayank. Not easy at all to be hitting the spinners so effortlessly.

 

[Bevab]

Pitch plays a part

You don't need this IPL century as proof for Mayank's spin playing abilities. He was already this good.

 

[Bigby Wolf]

Mayank Agarwal - You Beautyy!!!

What an innings that was ! He deserves every of praise started a bit of slogger back in 2011 for RCB but grinded his way out to evolve as top batter in domestic seasons for Karnataka from 2014 - 17 lead the chart as one of the top run getters in the Ranji Trophy.

 

[Bevab]

Just now realized that Uthappa is still in the XI. If you wanted a middle order player who can play as an anchor partly Lomror would have been better than Uthappa on current form.

 

[WubbaLubbaDubDub]

You don't need this IPL century as proof for Mayank's spin playing abilities. He was already this good.

Exactly, such a marvelous innings from him.