Should the Delhi Daredevils retain any players for IPL 4?

The cost of retaining 4 players would be 4.5 million dollars. Let’s look at the current cost of the players Delhi would want to retain. These are the names most of the fans also want.

Virender Sehwag – 833,750

Gautam Gambhir – 725,000

Amit Mishra – NA

Ashish Nehra – NA

Dinesh Karthik – 525,000

Dirk Nannes – NA

AB de Villiers – 300,000

Daniel Vettori – 625,000

The salary will go up from 6 million for the last 3 editions to 10 million for IPL 4. It will be reasonable to assume that the cost of the most wanted players would almost double. The likes of Tendulkar, Pollard, Dhoni, Symonds and Shane Watson would fall in this category. They can become the franchise player around which the team can be built.

Unfortunately, none of the players in the current Delhi squad falls in this category. And that is true for Virender Sehwag as well. His record in the IPL and other twenty-20 cricket isn’t that awe inspiring. That is why the squad retention formula is unfair for teams like Delhi who don’t have any super expensive players and boon for the likes of CSK and MI.

Delhi has a number of middle rung players whose value will appreciate by roughly 50 %. Therefore, retention will only make sense for Delhi if they had 4 players whose current cost was around 3 million and they were the incumbents Delhi wanted to hold on to. I cannot identify 4 such players.

One needs to analyze whether the same players will cost more or less in the IPL auction.

By not retaining anyone, Delhi will have the largest kitty to play around with in the auction and that will come in handy when we go after the match-winners that we lacked in the last 3 editions.

There is another reason why Delhi should rebuild (by not retaining anyone).

Delhi had one of the finest sides in the last 3 editions and was always near the top but they always faltered in the critical games. They lost two semi-finals and winner takes all game in the third season. Would you rather stick with the same guys and continue be just good or change the backbone and the DNA of the side and go for the jugular. I would prefer the latter.

This changed philosophy will be implemented by getting at least a couple of the big time stars – match winners who will win us the games we have always ended up losing. This will not be easy. Such players are few and most of them are already part of other teams – and as such will not be available for bidding. But a few of them will be and Delhi will have to go after them aggressively. And this is where the extra 4.5 million will come in handy.

But there is an alternate argument as well.

There is only a limited pool of quality Indian players. If every other team retains 3 Indian players, then 21 of them would be gone by the time the auction begins. There will be a big fight for the remaining Indian players. That would shoot up the value of the likes of Sehwag and Gambhir and Delhi’s strategy of not retaining anyone would rebound on them.  Delhi would either end up paying more for Indian players and not have the top class foreigners or get their match- winners but struggle to fill the 7 spots for Indian players. Either way it will be disaster.

But is this likely to happen?

Or will teams suffer from the same dilemma as the Daredevils and take a chance in the auction.  Let’s try and predict the strategy of the other sides and get a sense of the top Indian players who would be available for auction. That will tell us how risky it will be for Delhi to retain no one and go all out in the auction.

Players in bracket are the ones we assume they will retain. We are also assuming that by the time the season begins, somehow KXP and RR will be back in the fray. If they are not, then even better – all their players would be available.

MI (Sachin, Harbhajan and Zaheer and Pollard/Malinga) – Abhishek Nayar, Saurabh Tiwary, Ambati Rayudu, Shikhar Dhawan, R Sathish and Dhawal Kulkarni.

CSK (Dhoni, Raina, Badrinath or Ashwin or Murali Vijay) – At least 2 out of Badrinath, Ashwin and Vijay, Parthiv Patel, Balaji, Gony, Shadab Jakati and Sudeep Tyagi.

KXP – This is another team which will find it difficult to identify 3 Indians and one foreigner who are worth 4.5 million and as a result everyone will be available. Yuvraj, Chawla, Sreesanth, Irfan Pathan, Ramesh Powar and VRV Singh.

KKR – They are in the same boat as KXP- Ganguly, Ishant, Dinda, Jaidev Unadkat, Manoj Tiwary, Wridhiman Saha, Murali Karthik and Agarkar

DC (They could consider retaining Rohit Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, RP Singh and Andrew Symonds. This is a quartet worth 4.5 million. Their international form might be patchy but they have been superb in the IPL) – T Suman, VVS Laxman and Harmeet Singh.

RR (Could possibly go with Yusuf Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja, Naman Ojha and Warne or Watson. This is a money conscious side which doesn’t prefer to get into a bidding game) – Munaf Patel and Siddhartha Trivedi.

DD – Sehwag, Umesh Yadav, Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, Ashish Nehra, Amit Mishra, Pradeep Sangwan and Rajat Bhatia.

RCB ( Could go with Anil Kumble, Virat Kohli, Manish Pandey or Robin Uthappa and KP or Kallis or Ross Taylor) – Manish Pandey or Robin Uthappa, Dravid, Vinay Kumar, Pankaj Singh and Abhimanyu Mithun

There are around 45 players available and that is the minimum number required to just fill the quota of 7 Indians in the playing eleven for each team. As a result, the bidding will be intense and major money will be thrown around for the Indians.

Delhi could still make this work – provided they play the auction well and do their scouting well.

They have done both well in the past. They had one of the strongest and deepest sides in the last 3 editions and managed to do that without overpaying for anyone. They got bargains for both Indians and foreign players. Case in point being the likes of Gambhir, Karthik, Collingwood, Mohd Asif and McGrath.

They also unearthed unknown or less well-known players who served them well. Umesh Yadav, Pradeep Sangwan, David Warner and Dirk Nannes fall in this category.

A repeat performance will ensure that Delhi can bid aggressively for the big guns and fill the rest of the squad with bargains and new talent. This was the route taken by the Chargers in season 2 and 3.

Delhi has their destiny in their own hands. They can either play safe or take a riskier approach to build a stronger side. And depending on that, they can decide whether to retain 4 players or go all out in the IPL player auction.