Indian Premier League - General Discussion

[Yash.]

Priyam and Abhishek were just wondeful today, even though they were aided by some pretty ordinary fielding from CSK. The worrying thing for SRH is Warner's form, and Bhuvi's injury (just when I thought he was getting his mojo back).

 

[CerealKiller]

How Imran Tahir is not playing in the UAE, is beyond me.

 

[Ed Smith]

Going to have to stop betting all my vcash on the IPL...

 

[Bevab]

I've said it before but as long as teams approach a match versus CSK with belief in their abilities, without any fear of facing up to a renowned team and a solid plan, they will 9/10 times. This team is clearly not of the required quality. It is not possible to win matches when you have players struggling for fitness and form and with an outdated tactic that teams are easily learning how to counter.

If Chennai were to make the playoffs, it would be because other teams got outwitted by the excellent strategic minds that the team still has to an extent and not due to any superiority in skill, just like the previous season which was another overachievement. They need to get Tahir back, wrist spinners win you games and Chawla is simply not of the required world class quality to swing games in your favour. I don't mind Dhoni batting at four after watching him play tonight, I still think he could rotate the strike to an adequate extent and also catch up by targeting a weaker bowler in the middle overs unlike the likes of Jadhav. I'm surprised that no replacements have been chosen till now though, Ricky Bhui and Prashant Chopra are two players with experience of playing for the India A team and they were not sold in the auction. It probably is too late to bring anyone in now though.

 

[Yash.]

How Imran Tahir is not playing in the UAE, is beyond me.

Because he is in a messed up team, which needs overseas all rounders much more than it needs a overseas spinner.

 

[Bevab]

Will Dhoni be fit for Sunday? I would laugh if Dhoni sits out and CSK bring in Ruturaj and have Rayudu keep wickets. I won't put it past them to go this way despite having Jagadeesan

The best part will be that Gaikwad will bat out of position at four instead of opening in that scenario. If RCB were to mismanage a talented prospect like him to this extent we would never hear the end of it! This bloke was the second highest run-scorer in last year's SMA Trophy and he is very clearly introduced only as a last resort and then dropped immediately once Rayudu returns while his Maharashtra teammate who struck 200 runs less than him is somehow retaining his place because... international reputation?

 

[Bevab]

Because he is in a messed up team, which needs overseas all rounders much more than it needs a overseas spinner.

I disagree, Chennai need a quality spinner who takes wickets more than an all-rounder in reality. With Tahir in the side we still have a chance of causing an early collapse or the dismissal of key batsmen. The extra all-rounder is not going to give us any batting depth than what we need. And it is not like we would be making use of the extra depth either, we had batting depth till number eleven today and yet only two of our players today had a strike-rate of more than 133, the minimum that is needed as an average to chase down a 160+ total. And one of those players was not at a run a ball until the 2/3rd of his innings and still could have been dismissed had one of India's best fielders taken a catch that he normally does not miss. If we are going to play cautious cricket as if we have a bunch of bunnies with the bat down the order, we might as well strengthen the bowling instead of having another bowling all-rounder.

In addition we also had four pace options to bowl at the death and do a passable job. Yet neither of our spinners are ones that I would count on to take wickets. Jadeja looks like he is back to his misfit T20 status after a good season last year. And I would still not call him a spinner that I rely on for taking wickets regularly. Chawla averages close to 30 in the last four seasons. He CANNOT be the primary leg spinner of this team when he isn't going to improve in the future as well.

 

[Bevab]

Priyam and Abhishek were just wondeful today, even though they were aided by some pretty ordinary fielding from CSK. The worrying thing for SRH is Warner's form, and Bhuvi's injury (just when I thought he was getting his mojo back).

If Bhuvi were to be out for a period of time, would the best replacement be bringing in Stanlake in place of Bairstow while Saha opens and keeps? His career took a big nosedive in the months preceding the pandemic but on paper he would at least offer something different to the rest of the bowling attack which looks a bit too similar. Wouldn't surprise me if Sandeep Sharma slotted straight back in though given how similar his portfolio is to Bhuvi's (minus the death bowling expertise of course).

 

[Ashutosh.]

If you wanna give respect to a bowler, yes don't hit boundaries, but at least take a single.

This distinguish Virat, AB, Williamson etc. from other batsmen.

 

[NILAYSHAH60]

He was struggling while running... Called the physio once for something... Was clearly pretty tired.

He was feeling like vomitting. If you saw the gesture he made in the 19th over you can make that out.

 

[asprin]

I've said this before - SRH, though, have 2 back to back wins will struggle to make the play offs. There have been positives no doubt but the middle order woes and death bowling are a serious cause of concern.

One could argue that CSK lost the match between 10-14 overs but the fact that they got so close to the target while chasing almost 20 rpo in the last 3 overs is a telling sign that our death bowling is gonna cost us matches soon.

Our top 4 looks good now and wouldn't want to change that even if Warner/Bairstow/Pandey/Williamson have 3-4 bad games as that's the best combo we have at the moment.

If only we had a strong local middle order batsman to compliment the top order I would have felt more comfortable.

Coming to the bowling, Natarajan has impressed me. Khaleel continues to disappoint and might I add, is starting to look like someone who the opposition will gun for every match.

Bhuvi had a great match and I hope for the sake of SRH's chances doesn't miss many games.

Rashid is living up to his reputation. Teams are obviously just going to look to play out his overs, so any wickets that he gets are a bonus.

The fifth bowler is again a problem. Don't feel very confident that Abhishek-Samad would have many good games like yesterday. So that makes for 4-6 juicy overs (counting Khaleel in there) to feast upon.

 

[Till Valhalla]

I've said this before - SRH, though, have 2 back to back wins will struggle to make the play offs. There have been positives no doubt but the middle order woes and death bowling are a serious cause of concern.

One could argue that CSK lost the match between 10-14 overs but the fact that they got so close to the target while chasing almost 20 rpo in the last 3 overs is a telling sign that our death bowling is gonna cost us matches soon.

Our top 4 looks good now and wouldn't want to change that even if Warner/Bairstow/Pandey/Williamson have 3-4 bad games as that's the best combo we have at the moment.

If only we had a strong local middle order batsman to compliment the top order I would have felt more comfortable.

Coming to the bowling, Natarajan has impressed me. Khaleel continues to disappoint and might I add, is starting to look like someone who the opposition will gun for every match.

Bhuvi had a great match and I hope for the sake of SRH's chances doesn't miss many games.

Rashid is living up to his reputation. Teams are obviously just going to look to play out his overs, so any wickets that he gets are a bonus.

The fifth bowler is again a problem. Don't feel very confident that Abhishek-Samad would have many good games like yesterday. So that makes for 4-6 juicy overs (counting Khaleel in there) to feast upon.

I think the batting showed by the youngsters yesterday is very promising and if they continue build on it I think we mayhmay a solid middle order. Khaleel needs to bowl most of his in the start or else Kaul or Sharma should be given the chance. For the 5 or 6 or 7 bowler we shall just hope that they do what's asked. Has Williamson stopped bowling?

 

[asprin]

I think the batting showed by the youngsters yesterday is very promising

At the risk of sounding cynical, I don't think that will be repeated again in this tournament. Sort of like Tewatia-type innings.

It was great but we all the chances of that happening again.

 

[LiveLoveABD]

People are putting on a whole hearted bash on CSK and it's easy to do that. The entire balance of that team went for a toss the moment Raina pulled out. Imagine the other 6 franchises without-

Kohli
Samson
KL Rahul
Pant
Dinesh Karthik
Manish Pandey

I think it's okay to criticise their approach in a chase, but I think you need to keep things in perspective as well. I mean Sam Curran is playing less than 10 balls per innings? That's nonsense. Do not count them out.

 

[NILAYSHAH60]

I don't think CSK are affected by Raina's absence at all. Raina and Rayudu were actually struggling last year and also he had a poor season a year prior to it. Even if Raina was there for CSK they would've been struggling the way they are now. The last 2 years if you see then coming to 2018 season they were heavily dependent on their openers who scored loads of runs for them while Dhoni was batting on a different level that season. Now when you come to 2019 season, Rayudu who was their consistent opener was sent down the order at 4 to fit Du Plessis into their line-up at the top of the order. While middle order mainly fired due to Dhoni and Jadhav with support from Bravo and Jadeja. The problem this year is that Rayudu who was their best batsman in their opening match got injured so the support that Du Plessis got was missing, Kedar Jadhav is failing to middle everything thrown at him since the World Cup so no surprises why he hasn't delivered and Dhoni hasn't played in any form of Cricket in last 15 months so coming into the IPL was always going to be difficult and on top of that he is batting down the order which has made things look worser. And in these conditions of you concede 160-170 then half the match is over by then. So CSK needs to somehow bring back Tahir. My batting order for CSK for tomorrow should be

Faf
Ruturaj
Rayudu
Dhoni
Jadhav
Sam Curran
Bravo
Karn Sharma
Tahir
Shardul
Chahar