So how did we all fare until now?
@Bevab - Lot #1
Paul Collingwood
MS Dhoni
Shakib Al Hasan
Mitchell Johnson
Nathan Rimmington
- A middle order of Dhoni and Collingwood is fantastic for hitting sixes, not to mention the huge impact Dhoni's keeping and leadership will have on the team.
- Shakib is the ideal all-rounder that Dhoni craves. He can bat in the top six (even if he is not as good with the bat in T20s) and bowl finger spin accurately with variations to keep the batsmen guessing.
- While Johnson might have a decent IPL record, a large part of it came when he was the supporting act to Malinga rather than the leader of the attack.
- Rimmington's sole IPL game might have been decent but there is no doubt that he isn't anywhere near good.
@Aislabie - Lot #2
KL Rahul
Eoin Morgan
Shahid Afridi
Sohail Tanvir
Michael Neser
- Rahul is one among the top T20 batsmen currently and will easily be a match-winner on most occasions.
- Tanvir is the type of pacer who is difficult to extract runs from and even if he wouldn't have taken as many wickets in future seasons, he would have been one of the top T20 pacers in the IPL.
- There is no getting around it, Morgan's record in the IPL is quite poor for an overseas star despite playing 50 matches and Afridi under-performed in his single season and would have only been as slightly worse than his international numbers if he had played more seasons.
- Neser is a shockingly bad bowler and the best choice would be to give him just a single over in most games.
@Na Maloom Afraad - Lot #3
Matthew Hayden
Sourav Ganguly
Roelof van der Merwe
Shoaib Akhtar
Umar Gul
- Matthew Hayden is one of the three players who you could have hoped for to get as the ideal partner for Ganguly and you did manage to do it. Certainly helps that he is an extremely good player too.
- Akhtar and Gul are two of the perfect bowlers to bowl in tandem, with one being an express pace bowler and the other a deceptive seamer. In addition, they both have previous experience together and have a very good yorker.
- There is a reason why Kolkata won the league just two seasons after Ganguly last played a game for them while he could only struggle in Pune. While he might have been their top scorer in two seasons, was it worth it when the team arguably suffered from his relative lack of aggression?
- More of a nitpick, but Roelof van der Merwe's job could have easily done by any one of the dozens of spin all-rounders that India has everywhere.
@Akshay. - Lot #4
Virender Sehwag
Andre Russell
Rilee Rossouw
Kevon Cooper
Jason Holder
- Sehwag and Russell are two of the most destructive batsmen the IPL has ever seen and both have decent experience with captaincy too.
- Cooper is a fantastic option at the death and can also whack the ball down the order if required.
- Rossouw might have been mismanaged by RCB but five games is a lot more than what a lot of other players receive and four of them were in the Chinnaswamy too. Only one of those performances was any good and there is also the question of whether he should play as an opener or in the middle order.
- Holder is a really bad T20 player who is bound to be expensive no matter in which phase he bowls due to his lack of variations.
@CerealKiller - Lot #5
Albie Morkel
Bhuvneshwar Kumar
Brett Lee
Ashley Noffke
Abdur Razzak
- Morkel is one of the best pace all-rounders you could have hoped for and will cause absolute chaos when he walks in to bat.
- Bhuvi is a fantastic pick as the best Indian pacer in IPL history and can bowl both upfront and in the death with a bag of tricks to surprise anyone.
- Lee is decent for bowling an average T20 spell but if you need wickets, he is not your man.
- Noffke and Razzak were both one match wonders for the same team and are simply not good enough to bowl their full quota.
@ahmedleo414 -
Lot #6
Manish Pandey
Nuwan Zoysa
Akila Dananjaya
Tim Southee
Yusuf Abdulla
- Pandey is one of the best fielders you could have hoped to pick. He can save around 10-20 runs every game and is good for pulling a wonder catch every now and then that no one else is capable of.
- Abdulla is a good T20 bowler who can be useful for several variations and a left-arm pace option is always something that helps.
- Akila is just a bad choice for an overseas spinner. He is ineffective on Indian pitches and can be easily read by a lot of domestic batsmen.
- Zoysa's T20 experience is very limited and his IPL stint was no good while Southee is simply not a decent white ball bowler who becomes progressively worse the shorter the format and the closer he is to the final over.
@Nilay_60 - Lot #7
Adam Gilchrist
Sachin Tendulkar
Colin Ingram
Peter Handscomb
Lasith Malinga
- Tendulkar and Gilchrist is the perfect opening combination one could wish for. Both have good experience of captaincy but Gilchrist was one of the best captains when he played and it would make sense for him to be the leader.
- Malinga is the best bowler in IPL history. He will win you games by himself and you can rely on him to defend any target in the final over.
- There is no getting around it, that middle order is quite weak with Handscomb being a particularly shocking batsman.
- Neither Ingram nor Handscomb can bowl, meaning that you will need to rely entirely on domestic options for all-rounders.
@Bigby Wolf - Lot #8
Chris Lynn
Rob Quiney
Tatenda Taibu
Shaun Pollock
Jasprit Bumrah
- Lynn is one of the most feared T20 batsmen present today and even if he hasn't been a top overseas IPL player, the number of sixes he can hit means that when he has a good game your team has a high chance of winning.
- Pollock and Bumrah are a very miserly duo and it will be particularly difficult to score runs off them.
- Taibu is not really good enough to merit a spot in the top six as a batsman and given the rules he can't play as a keeper either.
- Seven games is enough to assess an overseas player and it is clear that Quiney is no good as an opener. And this was in South Africa, imagine how much worse he would have been on the dry pitches of India.
@VC the slogger - Lot #9
Sunil Narine
Owais Shah
Rishabh Pant
Sam Billings
Ray Price
- Narine is a great spinner who can bowl in any phase of the game and is also one of the few pinch-hitters who actually is good.
- Pant is an excellent choice given how he can score big quickly and consistently and could work well with Shah.
- Unfortunately Price will simply have to play as a specialist fielder who can't bowl which puts more pressure on Narine and the hypothetical all-rounder at seven to bowl their entire quota.
- Billings is completely redundant in this team as Pant can do everything he does with better results.
With all said and done, it is time for the fourth and final layer as we try to fix the mess left behind. I've put up a temporary list of rejected domestic players in the first post and will update it with the entire list including overseas players and the users later. The order is based on the previous drafts where the worst teams get a chance first. Rememeber that you will only be allowed to pick
Indian players from here on.
- @ahmedleo414
- @CerealKiller
- @VC the slogger
- @Aislabie
- @Bigby Wolf
- @Nilay_60
- @Akshay.
- @Bevab
- @Na Maloom Afraad
- @ahmedleo414
- @CerealKiller
- @VC the slogger
- @Aislabie
- @Bigby Wolf
- @Nilay_60
- @Akshay.
- @Bevab
- @Na Maloom Afraad
- @ahmedleo414
- @CerealKiller
- @VC the slogger
- @Aislabie
- @Bigby Wolf
- @Nilay_60
- @Akshay.
- @Bevab
- @Na Maloom Afraad
- @ahmedleo414
- @CerealKiller
- @VC the slogger
- @Aislabie
- @Bigby Wolf
- @Nilay_60
- @Akshay.
- @Bevab
- @Na Maloom Afraad
- @ahmedleo414
- @CerealKiller
- @VC the slogger
- @Aislabie
- @Bigby Wolf
- @Nilay_60
- @Akshay.
- @Bevab
- @Na Maloom Afraad
- @ahmedleo414
- @CerealKiller
- @VC the slogger
- @Aislabie
- @Bigby Wolf
- @Nilay_60
- @Akshay.
- @Bevab
- @Na Maloom Afraad
Good luck!